Interloper
by Roadstergal
Summary: An arc of ficlets based on the movieverse. HillaryBryce slash. The first chapter is G. Subsequent chapers will range from G to T.
1. Chapter 1

He can't think of any less welcome guest installing himself so permanently in so short a time.

It was a sacrilege. Like seeing a slug crawl along a petal of one of the roses that Lady Croft loves to smell on a lazy summer's day. He learned gardening just to keep those roses thriving for Lara - and he now has to learn to tend to this vermin.

He can't blame Lara for seeking to hire an expert in computers and electronics. The world was rapidly becoming an electronic one in the late '80s, with profound implications for her business/passion; a business in which staying ahead of the competition was essential. Athletic flitting is well and good, and Lara is unparalleled in that; but to know _where_ to flit - that is the challenge to which technology is rising.  
Many young men and women were recognizing the exciting possibilities of a computerized world, and diving into the new industry with enthusiasm. With her reputation and her money, she could have had the best. But no, she had come home that wretched evening hauling a half-drunk wreck of a man - early thirties, Hillary's own age, he guessed, but with a much more lined face - and handed him over.

"Hillary, meet Bryce. I've hired him as my new technology consultant. Could you clean him up and drop him into a bed until he sobers up?" She turned on her heel and headed to her room, leaving Hillary holding the rather odiferous man by a filthy collar.

Hillary had done as she asked - rapidly, none too gently, and with no attention paid to the man's weak protests. He hauled the newly clean and naked man to the guest bedroom, turned the key, and spent the next hour trying to persuade Lara that she had better options. That the London Zoo held better options. But when Lara wanted something, she became the frosty and implacable Lady of the Manor, and for no reason that Hillary could determine, she wanted Bryce.

And the month that had passed hadn't changed her mind.

Hillary paced restlessly in the entrance hall. Bryce was moving in. He had gone to his apartment to collect his "things," and Lady Croft had asked Hillary to help him unload them. Hillary would no more consider not doing what Lady Croft asked than he would consider not breathing, so here he stood. Here he paced. He heard the rumble of a vehicle over the cobblestone driveway, and steeled himself.

The rumble stopped. He heard some clanks and muffled cursing. A minute later, a head of dirty-blond hair poked through the door, followed by a thin body almost matched in bulk by the plastic computer case, monitor, keyboard, and trackball that he was trying to carry with too few limbs.

Hillary sighed and extricated the case and CRT from Bryce's arms. "This way. Lady Croft set aside a study to be your workroom, and invited you to choose one of the guestrooms." He managed to make it through the speech without any of the words sticking in his throat. He was nothing if not professional.

"Aw, no worries, mate; me trailer is good enough for me to live in." Ah, there was some hope, if the blighter was not going to be living in the mansion.

They unloaded the rest of the trailer - a decrepit stainless steel number, relic of a bygone era, attached to a lorry that was as much rust as it was metal. Hillary left Bryce fiddling manically with a pile of equipment, a beatific expression on his face. It was time to prepare Lara's tea. As Hillary walked out, he heard _her_ walking in from another door and speaking with Bryce. "Settling in well?" Her upper-class, melodic, smooth tones gave way to Bryce's grating tone like a Chopin cello solo leading in to a kazoo. "Right on, Lara; it'll take me a few days to get it all set up, but this is a cracking good space you have here!" They spoke for all the world as if they were old friends newly reunited. Hillary closed the door on them with a stiffened back.

xxxxxx

Lara was back in her study when he brought her tea. He set down the tray without a word, and was about to make a swift exit when Lara held him back with a gentle hand on his.

"You're not happy with Bryce."

"No, madam. We talked about this a month ago, you will remember."

She sighed, let go of his hand, and looked off into the distance. "You only call me 'madam' when you're upset with me." She paused, and the only sound was the ticking of the old wooden clock that sat on her desk. "Bryce is Selva's son. You remember her. I don't know why the tedious old trout was so important to father, but she was... and before she died, I promised her I'd look after her son." She looked up and met Hillary's eye. "It will be good for us, too. I did some background checks before I took him on; he's brilliant. Just lazy. Would you please try to get on with him? For me, Hillary."

He couldn't argue with that, and she knew it. He sighed and nodded.

"Good!" She sat up and clapped her hands. "He has to return that lorry to his friend - be a dear and take the Aston-Martin along with, to give him a ride back." She tucked into the tea and scones with gusto.

xxxxxx

Bryce was enchanted with the Aston-Martin. He slid into the leather passenger's set with the wide-eyed reverence of a teenager removing a bird's bra for the first time. A grin filled his face as he rolled down the window and listened to the roar of the engine. The lines, Hillary couldn't help noticing, filled the grin around his mouth and the laugh lines around his eyes. This man smiles a lot, he noted.

The smile didn't slip as he said, "You don't like me, man, do ya?"

Hillary looked over, startled at the bluntness. "Oh, it's all right," Bryce continued, "most folks don't like me at first." He looked back out of the window at the countryside that was flying by. "I get the feeling that you don't like me for a reason, though, mate."

"Lady Croft asked me to make you welcome, and I will do as she asks." Hillary was damned if he was going to be dragged into this.

"Ah, Lady Croft." The full title didn't fit well in Bryce's mouth. "Unusual bird, isn't she?"

Hillary bristled. "Lady Croft is most talented and accomplished." _In stark contrast to some here._

"Ah, I've heard that. Mum didn't like her, so I knew we'd get on. How long have you known her?"

"All of her life. My father brought me up to serve her father, Lord Croft, and I served Lara when he died."

Bryce let out a long whistle. "Bloody hell, mate, she's what, twenty-seven? That long? You must love either the job or the money."  
Hillary looked steadily at the road ahead.

Bryce smiled cannily as he studied Hillary's face. "Or the bird." Hillary snorted.

"Don't worry, man. I'm a free spirit, me; I'll be movin' on in my own good time. I don't settle down." He turned back to face the approaching manor.

xxxxxx

When the car stopped, Bryce had some trouble fumbling out of the seatbelt. He reached for the door handle, but the door opened on its own, and a hand easily big enough to encircle his upper arm hauled him out of the car.

"Three things," Hillary said, holding his arm in an iron grip. "One. Lady Croft. Not 'that bird.' Two. No swearing in the house. Three..." he considered the hyper man. "I'm putting you on decaf."

"Right on, mate." Bryce paused. "Er - I can't promise I'll remember all that. But I promise to try to get around to remembering."

Hillary sighed. "That will do. Now go clean up that mess you left in the study."

Which proved to be yet another thing Bryce would never quite get around to.


	2. Acquainted

Bryce had expected it to be a laugh, but so far, being Lara's technical consultant was rather dull. He was not expected to do anything, and spent his days working on projects he had always intended to finish, given the time - robots and varied communication devices, for the most part. He got up when he pleased - sometimes before noon - and stayed up as late as he liked. The only rule seemed to be that he was expected to return to his trailer if he wanted to listen to his music after Lara turned in for the night. He preferred it there anyway; the mansion was far too stuffy and formal for him to feel entirely comfortable.

Lara was always up before him; she spent her days reading and taking exercise. Ludicrous exercise, in his opinion; horseback riding, running, target-shooting with any number of fearsome guns, acrobatics, knife throwing, hand-to-hand fighting; it exhausted him just to watch her. Hillary would spend at least one morning a week cleaning, which invariably involved a terse altercation over Bryce's workspace. The man simply did not understand Bryce's mode of organization, and was always trying to upset his delicately arranged system of parts and projects. Why the butler couldn't leave Bryce's study free from buttling escaped him. Hillary would often spar with Lara in the afternoons, a position he had obviously been coerced into against his better judgment. The lighter, lither, more flexible Lara usually got the best of him, and Bryce would often take a break to watch. All in all, it was a satisfying enough arrangement, but Bryce had to admit to himself that it wasn't proving as thrilling as he had hoped.

"Oi, mate," he asked one afternoon as a sweating and disheveled Hillary took a shortcut through his study, "don't Miss Croft do any..." he flailed his hands helplessly, "adventurin'?"

Hillary sighed and sat on the edge of the desk. "Far too much of it. If you're hoping to accompany her, don't get too excited; she likes to go alone." He quirked an eyebrow at what Bryce was working on. "What is that?"

"Simon," Bryce replied proudly. "Lovely, innit?"

"Hardly." The butler did not seem to see the beauty of his creation. True, the body panels had been taken from an old vacuum cleaner, but the design! This would be a self-contained andriod, capable of independent decision-making and action. He explained as much.

"I should be so lucky, most days," Hillary muttered, and walked off to the shower.

xxxxxx

It must have been about two weeks later when Lara gave Bryce his first actual assignment. A copy of an old parchment, the original blurred by time and the copy blurred by too many reproductions. The language could have been one of a number of European dialects, and he was to reconstruct it and make sense of it. He dusted off an old OCR program, and wrote a fuzzy translator. All of the translations were equally Greek to him, but Lara was pleased with the results. She ran off to her room - to emerge minutes later dressed in a black shirt and a shockingly brief pair of shorts with a shockingly large pair of guns strapped just below. Hillary trotted behind, stuffing a few last items into a black backpack. Bryce jumped up and followed them to the door, where Lara grabbed a helmet from an entryway stand and the bag from Hillary, pecked him on the cheek, and ran out the door. Moments later, the sound of a bike firing to life gave way to the sound of it rushing down the driveway. Bryce trotted up to stand next to Hillary. "Bloody hell, mate, what was that?"

"Language," Hillary chided.

Bryce rolled his eyes. "Where's she off to?"

"Northern Germany. She was pleased with your work, it seems. There's an old suit of armor or some such that she's craving," he said dismissively.

"So - what do we do now?"

Hillary turned towards him with an eloquent shrug. "We wait. We give her information or send her more ammunition or run out to pick her up if she calls. We look after the house if some of her more unscrupulous competitors decide to take a shortcut to success."

"Are you havin' me on, mate?"

"Welcome to the team."

xxxxxx

The mansion was oddly quiet with Lara gone. He didn't realize how much her voice and activities had filled it, and he found it hard to concentrate on his work. He played helicopter flight simulations. He dyed his hair back to black. He stole the keys to the 340R while Hillary was out on errands and took it for a spin. He knew something was wrong when he voluntarily took a walk around the grounds.  
He played his techno music as loudly as he wanted in his trailer, but by the third night, he was fed up. He wanted talk to another human. He trotted into the mansion and negotiated the labyrinthine way to the butler's room. Never one for ceremony, he flung the door open and was two steps into the room before he was stopped cold by something at his throat that glinted, in the dim light, like a very large and sharp hunting knife with a very sleep-bleary Hillary on the other end. "Bugger!" Bryce squeaked.

Hillary sighed, sat back on the bed, flicked on the bedside lamp, and put the knife under his pillow. "Don't you ever knock?"

"I will now. Do you always sleep with a knife?"

"Only since Lara acquired unscrupulous competitors."

Bryce sat down next to him on the bed. "Quiet with her gone. I never thought a bird that small would make that much noise."

"It's presence, and she's not a bird." Hillary shifted. "You get used to it. The waiting, helplessly, knowing that she might be in danger. Knowing she might never return. But she wouldn't have it any other way. To try to hold her back would be like caging some wild and beautiful..." he frowned at Bryce, "...bird."

Bryce laughed, ran his hands through his hair, and flopped back on the foot of the bed. "So what do you do?"

Hillary waved at the magazine on the bedside table. "I read. I tend the place. I go for runs."

Bryce groaned. "I think I'm going to go mad."

Unexpectedly, Hillary laid his hand on Bryce's arm. "Don't worry." The edge of his mouth quirked upwards. "She'll take you along sometime. Then you'll be glad to stay here again."


	3. Dark

Hillary felt around the perimeter of the wall, his hands seeking any chink in the mortar that would serve as a handhold. But the stones were smoothly joined, and slick from the underground damp. He only succeeded in scraping his fingers raw.

"Any luck?" Bryce's voice sounded from the dark behind him.

"No," Hillary ground out. "Slick as snot. Not a handhold."

There was silence for a moment. "Bugger, mate," Bryce said quietly. "This is all my fault, innit."

"It's my fault, as well. I believe that Laura may give both of our corpses the sack."

xxxxxx

It had seemed like such a reasonable idea at the time.

xxxxxx

Lara was out on as routine a job as she was ever engaged in. She had been investigating a small pharonic tomb that had been uncovered, explored, and dismissed. The dimensions of the mapped rooms had not added up, and she had caught a flight to Cairo, excited about the prospect of finding a chamber unmolested by tomb robbers. Given the diminutive size of the tomb, there was unlikely to be a treasure trove inside, but the historical value of the find might be significant, and Lara was determined to be the finder.

Given her enthusiasm, it was understandable that she would miss her first scheduled check-in. Missing her second, though, was cause for worry, and when she missed her third, neither Bryce nor Hillary was willing to sit around anymore.

"No answer on her cellular phone?"

"No. And would you stop that?" Hillary abandoned his restless pacing and sat on the edge of Bryce's desk. Bryce studied Hillary from behind the shoes Bryce had up on the desk and crossed. "We have to go after her."

"No need for both of us to go. You stay here and look after the place."

Bryce snorted. "I can't look after a bleedin' house plant, man. I'll be of more use with you."

Maybe Hillary should have argued more, but Bryce did have a point. "Pack one bag. Let's see what flight we can catch."

Six hours later, they were in a rented Jeep southeast of Cairo, following the GPS coordinates they had found in Lara's notes. Bryce fidgeted as sand ran down the neck of his T-shirt and filled his trainers. Hillary's khakis and over-ankle boots were better suited to the terrain.

"Where'd you get that kit? Looks like bleedin' army gear."

"It's bleedin' army gear." Hillary pointed. "Look."

It was nothing spectacular; in fact, it was barely visible. A square entrance protruded slightly from earth that was as red-brown as the dusty stone.

They stopped outside and disembarked. Bryce took out his handheld and pulled up the official map of the tomb. "Fifty steps down, and then a hard left to the main corridor."

Hillary led the way with a torch. "I don't like it, Bryce. This place shouldn't be sitting open and empty like this."

"Main chamber on the left," Bryce continued stubbornly. "Lara thought there might be an entrance to a secret chamber in the annex. A few more meters ahead and to the right."

The tomb was eerily silent. Footsteps in the ancient dust showed that it had been recently disturbed, but not a soul was present at the moment, and the silence seemed to push the dusty stone walls inward. Hillary swallowed and ducked through the wooden scaffold that had been erected in the annex's doorframe.

The annex was a plain room, with a small stone sarcophagus at the far wall. Bryce walked towards it.

"Don't touch that. The pharaohs were infamously paranoid; there are bound to be booby traps."

Bryce sighed. "Look, man, we need to find Lara. She thought the entrance to the secret chamber was in here. We need to find it." He shifted the cover off of the sarcophagus as Hillary cringed. Nothing happened.

"Blow me, mate, look at this!" Hillary walked over and looked in. A small staircase led down into inky blackness below.

"Well, here goes..." "Wait!" They spoke simultaneously and acted simultaneously, Bryce stepping onto the staircase as Hillary grabbed his arm. If Hillay hadn't been overbalanced and had the torch in one hand, he might have been able to hold Bryce up as the staircase folded into a slippery stone ramp; but as it was, they both went flying. The staircase/ramp ended in a dirt floor, but their velocity pitched them into a more abrupt fall about a meter and a half beyond. Hillary fell hard onto a stone floor; the torch shattered as he landed on his left hand with a sickening crunch, and the metal end drove the air from his lungs with a whoosh. He gasped to refill his lungs as Bryce's loud cursing trailed off.

"Are you all right?" Hillary felt his left wrist; definitely broken, and shards of glass from the lens had embedded themselves in his hand.

"Me leg hurts like..." Bryce yelped and cursed again.

"Don't move." Hillary moved towards the sound of Bryce's voice, finding his shoulder, and gently moving his hand down to Bryce's leg. The protruding tibia was unmistakable. "You have a compound fracture. Don't move that leg."

Hillary moved to explore their surroundings. They were in a circular stone pit, not more than twenty meters in diameter, and deep enough that Hillary couldn't feel the lip when he jumped with his right arm upraised.

Hillary felt around the perimeter of the wall, his hands seeking any chink in the mortar that would serve as a handhold. But the stones were smoothly joined, and slick from the underground damp. He only succeeded in scraping his fingers raw.

"Any luck?" Bryce's voice sounded from the dark behind him.

xxxxxx

Hillary sat down, spent. He wasn't one to give up, but he had been struggling for what he estimated was over an hour, and he could see no way out of the trap.

"You know, it isn't dying I mind so much..." Bryce pondered. "It's dying from such a silly trap." Hillary's answering bark of laughter was near-hysterical. "I think that's about all."

"Well, now would be the time to take care of any last-minute regrets, I suppose," Bryce said. His hand blindly fumbled for Hillary's face, and found it.

Hillary's surprise at being kissed by Bryce was substantial enough to render him speechless for a moment - time enough to discover that he was being kissed rather well. Unexpectedly soft lips moved over his as a lean hand stroked his cheek. When he opened his mouth to protest, a sly tongue slipped in, and he gave up. Their tongues danced with dizzying sensuality. The kiss was as deep and solid as the blackness around, and it had not gone on for nearly long enough when they heard footsteps above them, and a familiar voice calling, "Hillary? Bryce?"

"Lara!" Hillary cringed when he heard the squeak his voice emerged as.

"Hello, boys!" A light flashed down on them, and they both flung up forearms against its painful brightness. "I saw a Jeep outside with a very familiar-looking pack inside, and thought, no, it couldn't be... Trying your hands at adventuring, boys?"

"Lara!" barked Hillary. "You never checked in or answered your phone!"

"Blimy, girl, were we supposed to sit with thumbs up our arses while you might be dyin'?"

"Oh, er, yes." From behind the torch, Lara sounded slightly embarrassed. "You see, I got sand in my phone, and it stopped working. And I thought there might be a few other tombs of this type in the vicinity, so I explored out… only a few kilometers radius from here, really. I was going to call you as soon as I reported the new chambers in this tomb with the University, I swear..."

"Lara," ground Hillary, "You can make your own bloody tea this week."

xxxxxx

They hauled Bryce up with a rope from Lara's survival pack. Hauling up Hillary was more challenging, as he outweighed Lara enough to prevent her dragging him out, but she found a broken spot in the stone wall that served to anchor her grapple. She flopped on the lip of the pit and helped his one-handed scramble as soon as he was within reach. They climbed the stone ramp - which had purchase enough, if you hadn't just been unexpectedly dropped on it - and exited the tomb. Lara tossed their gear into her Jeep and motioned them into it.

"We'll tell the company where we left it and pay their fee." Hillary helped Bryce into the back, and they enjoyed a rapid ride back with a highly enthusiastic narrative from Lara. Hillary hated to interrupt, but as they approached the city, he nudged Lara. "Drop us off at the hospital, then go report your find at the University. They'll be done patching us up by then." She shot him a grateful look.

Bryce had been uncharacteristically silent during the trip, and avoided Hillary's eyes as he helped the slender man inside. Hillary considered what to do as they were being tended. He did not have to consider long; his duty, to both the stability of Lara's household and to the man he had come to regard as a friend, was clear. He walked down the corridor to Bryce's room. The smaller man sat in bed and flipped nervously through a book, his leg splinted and sutured. His uneasiness became palpable as Hillary walked in. "Oh, hullo... I, er..."

Hillary covered Bryce's mouth with his own and kissed him fiercely. Although duty and pleasure did not always intersect, who was he to complain when it did?


	4. Outsides

Author note: Danke for the feedback! I have a few of these already written, so they will go up relatively quickly - and then trickle off as I have to start making them up again.  
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Bryce wondered, irritably, how long it takes a broken leg to heal. It's all very well for a quack to toss a figure at him, but measuring a figure up against a man's life doesn't drive it home. Every day that he struggles to get the splinted limb successfully out of bed, every day he hobbles from the trailer to the study, every day that the unexpectedly unbending leg kicks over a carefully arranged pile of circuitry, is an eternity, and he fumes about it.

Lara is apologetic and solicitous, and her pity rankles. She blames herself for his reckless action, which only makes him feel more culpable in turn. He spends his time working on an abrasion-proof, waterproof, shockproof, Lara-proof phone. He should stick to what he knows. Too much trouble comes from dabbling in adventuring.

And Hillary, apparently, agrees. The butler is all stiff formality, now. He speaks to Bryce when spoken to, and his answers are terse. The rapport that he had felt beginning between them, at last, was gone in an instant. We often wonder, when something goes terribly wrong, just when the moment of change came. Rarely do we get to know the answer. Bryce did, and he had plenty of time to review it.  
The hospital. His leg treated, his stomach past hope. It tossed and flipped as he replayed the last few hours between two lenses - the self-flagellation of too-much-revealed, and an agony of hope that it had been serendipitous. And then Hillary had walked in; filthy, but with his everpresent quiet dignity, and had kissed Bryce solidly and sweetly. And Bryce, with startlement layered on existing fear and new indecision... hadn't kissed him back. He sat there, mute, as Hillary drew back, frowned, looked down, and left. And Bryce lay there mute for some time after. And quiet had lain over both of them like a shroud since then.

xxxxxx

Bryce sat at his desk with a circuit board in front of him. A soldering iron smoldered on a stand to his right, and he held two tweezers in his hands. He had been working on the same circuit for over an hour. The wires danced out of his grip and flitted their own unruly way, aping his thoughts. He took one of them in his right tweezer and tried to bend it under an existing wire. He pinched too hard, and the tweezers skittered out of his grasp. "Bugger!" he cried in exasperation, throwing the other pair after it. He pinched the upper part of his nose between slender fingers, and sighed.

"Time for a break, I think."

Bryce looked up to see Lara standing in the doorway, smiling gently. Bryce shrugged. "Eh, some days, they go together, and some days, you have to force 'em."

"How true," she said, walking over to the desk. She stopped behind Bryce's chair, and started to rub his shoulders. Powerful fingers dug into his back, and he gasped. "Dear lord, you're tense. Your knots have knots."

"Yes...I...think...I...am," Bryce grunted between kneads. "I...think...I'm...going..to..have...bruises."

Lara eased the pressure as she continued to rub. She bent close to his ear and said, quietly, "I'm not blind, you know."

"Come again?"

"It might be presumptuous of me to guess at how _you_ feel, but I have known Hillary all of my life." He stiffened under her hands, and she put them gently on top of his shoulders. "I don't know exactly what happened while I was off in Egypt. But I can see how it affected him. I've seen how he looks at you when you are not paying attention." An edge of steel crept into her voice. "I have grown to like you, Bryce. But I will not stand by and let him be hurt." Bryce pulled her hand off of his left shoulder and turned his chair to face her. "Lara... It ain't that simple. I think he's a mighty attractive bloke, I do. I've had my share of attractive blokes, and it's been a laugh. But now this..." He waved his hand to indicate the study, the manor, Lara. "This is the longest I've had a job. Blimey, this is the longest I've lived in one place since I were a kid. An now, this? It terrifies me, all of it, I have ta say, Lara." He was almost choking by the end. The air seemed stale, and the sun outside far, far away.

Lara sighed. "This is not a choice I can make for you, Bryce. You're a big boy." She smiled impishly. "Technically."  
She stepped back and picked up one of his robotic insects. "I have had my share of attractive blokes, too." She tickled the 'belly' to activate it and set it down, watching it skitter off along the floor. "Pity that they've all been moral garbage on legs."

xxxxxx

Several days of reflection on this conversation had not improved Bryce's mental state. He sat in his trailer, playing WWII combat simulations. It was 3am, he was not in the least bit sleepy, and his commando had gone through more lives than a herd of cats. He put the joystick aside and glanced reflexively at the manor. He was rather surprised to see a light on in the second story. He could not tell, from the outside, which of the eighty-some rooms was lit. It was most likely a spare room that had somehow been left with a light burning on accident, he told himself. He grumbled and debated for a few minutes, but eventually hauled himself out of his chair, pulled a black T-shirt on to accompany his boxers, and hobbled his way out of the trailer and across the lawn.

He paused to disable the security system at the door, and walked stiffly up the long, ornate staircase. The light shone out from a door he knew very well from this side.

He stood outside of it in the cool, dark corridor for a few minutes in indecision. He heard pages rustling inside. Finally, he knocked at the door.

On hearing, "Come," he turned the crystal knob and pushed the heavy hardwood door open. Hillary sat in bed, on the covers, in a dark dressing-gown. A heavy book with yellowed pages sat in his lap, and he was looking at it instead of Bryce. "I thought you were going to stand outside all night."

Bryce shrugged and walked quietly over to the bed. He sat on the edge, and looked at Hillary's left hand, which lay on the coverlet next to him. It was pinned and unbandaged, and pink lines from the freshly healed cuts showed where scars would form.

"I dunno, man."

"You don't know what?" The voice was harsh.

"I just... don't." He couldn't express it. He lifted the hand in his, and as the sleeve fell away, he saw an older white scar twisting over the top of the forearm. He ran his fingers over it, and looked at Hillary. The butler was looking at his face with the intensity of a painter reviewing his subject. He had a small scar on his jawline, and Bryce traced it with a slender forefinger. "I don't..." He swallowed as he parted the nightgown to run his fingers along four parallel slashes that shone dimly white in the lamplight. "I don't want to give you any more of these, man."

Hillary dropped the book and grabbed the hand in his. "It's my choice." He pulled Bryce down, and Bryce swung his legs up and put his head on Hillary's chest; he felt abruptly exhausted.

"My choice," Hillary repeated softly, stroking Bryce's hair. Bryce closed his eyes and fell asleep to the steady thrum of Hillary's heartbeat.


	5. Taste

Notes: Just a gratiutous interlude of smut.

Bryce loves the taste of sugarless soft drinks. He knows it's odd, but he prefers it. The corn syrup in the sugared ones leave them too soft and bland. Something about the artificial sweetener makes the taste bolder, snappier, just on the edge of bitter. That, for him, is the good stuff. The jolt of caffeine and the bubbles that tickle his throat are bonuses, of course, but it's the taste that makes him swill it.  
Espresso, as well, drives him mad with desire. That strong dose of coffee, bitter enough to make his tongue scream for mercy, but as smooth as butter going down. He believes that he could live on soft drinks and espresso. The actual food he eats is just taken in to keep his body functioning; it is too coarse to truly give him delight.

Yes, do not judge Bryce by his dirty band-tour T-shirts, his perpetual growth of stubble, his pillow-styled hair; no, Bryce is a man of discriminating taste.

And it's driving him mad.

He wants to be good, he does. After the rough course of the recent sharings between him and Hillary, he feels obliged to let it all settle a bit before pressing forward. But he is human. And it has been a rather long while since the last time that detail was attended to. And... he is a man of discriminating tastes. He has had little luck in his attempts to conveniently forget the loveliness of the two times he tasted Hillary's lips. A master chef would envy the subtlety of it. That smooth taste of cleanliness served as the base of the whole experience. Over that, a hint of mint; not too much, barely enough to register. A bit of dark autumn spice mixed in there, and sprinkled over the top, a garnish of fresh sweat; salt, with just a touch of that personal musk that made it distinctive.

If his food tasted that good, he'd be fat.

It was one of the dreaded cleaning days that finally caused him to snap. He and Hillary were arguing, as usual, over the study where Bryce kept his equipment. Hillary thought it was a fair compromise to leave the trailer alone and clean the study. Bryce couldn't make him see the sense of leaving the study alone and just cleaning the rest of the mansion. This argument usually ended with the disruption of Bryce's careful organization in the process that Hillary called 'cleaning.' Hillary was just beginning to enforce his decision, and leaned over Bryce's desk to pick up a stray PCI card. He was extended at that point, his ear next to Bryce's face, and Bryce decided he could hardly be considered culpable, under the circumstances, for licking it. Delicious - slightly sweet, perfectly salty. After a good, slow lick, he decided to try the skin on the neck, and found it equally appetizing as he licked and sucked. At that point, Hillary turned towards him, and he had ample opportunity to repeat his observations vis-à-vis the taste of Hillary's mouth.

It was a rather long and circuitous walk back to Hillary's room, but thanks to the butler's tightly formal clothing, Bryce had only succeeded in undoing his tie and the buttons on his jacket and vest before they fell on the bed. With a stable surface behind him, he managed to pull the shirt open (losing a few buttons in the process) in the time his own shirt was off and flung across the room. The wiry brown hairs, sprinkled with grey, added something pleasantly metallic to the basic taste of the skin, he decided. Hillary groaned and fell on his back, allowing Bryce the freedom to pull the shirt back a little farther and taste the subtle spiciness added by the nipples, and the deeper musk of the navel hollow. Hillary lay still, only betraying himself with moans and the twist of his fingers in Bryce's hair. After this feast, the afters of stiff, trembling cock and warm seed were a natural conclusion. His own orgasm pulled out by strong, swift fingers was almost an unexpected end, and he barely had the strength to move to the side before collapsing on the sticky, rumpled pile of formerly fine clothing that covered the bed.

Hillary touched Bryce's cheek, tentatively. "This won't stop me from cleaning your study, you realize."

Bryce sighed. "Philistine, you are. I'll have to put it back to rights when you're done."

He rolled on his side and ran his fingers through Hillary's tightly curled hair. He'd worry about it later.


	6. Bender

The shot went down his throat like liquid fire. _Fine_ stuff, this. He gasped for breath and slapped the glass on the bar.

"Oi, mate, you're not out yet, are you?" a voice to his right said. Rather slurred, he thought; amateur. "Neh, just warmin' up." Rather slurred, he thought; then, oh, bugger, that's me. He giggled. The voice to his right laughed as well. "What's yer name again, mate?"

Good question. It took him a moment to get the right answer. "Bryce."

"One more for my man Bryce!" A hand clapped Bryce on his shoulder. He turned to look at the owner of the voice and the hand. Not bad, not at all. "I'm Nate," said the owner, picking up his shot and downing it in one gulp.

"Nate, me mate!" Bryce said, downing his shot and laughing.

It was a few shots later when Nate suggested a breath of fresh air. The air in the back alley behind the pub was scarcely more tolerable than the air inside, but with the ponderous cunning of the highly intoxicated, Bryce guessed that the air business might be a pretext. He was delighted to be proven right when he was pushed against the stone wall, and Nate tilted his head for a snog. Attractive enough bloke, Bryce decided, and opened his mouth to help the process along. He grabbed a handful of hair, more for balance than affection.

After a few minutes of this, Nate pulled back. "Whew, mate, you're sexshy." He fumbled with his pants. "Howsh about a little suck, boy?"

Bryce is a petulant drunk, and a blow in a dirty alley was not on his agenda. "Go bugger yerself," he snapped, pushing at Nate's chest.  
The other man swayed back briefly, taken by surprise, but leaned forward with narrowed eyes and grabbed Bryce's arm. "Fuckin' cocktease, eh, man?" He bent the arm that he was holding, intending to bring Bryce to his knees. Bryce turned his wrist in, wrenching it out of Nate's grasp. He spun around, intending to hare it, but Nate grabbed his other arm and swung him back against the stone wall, hard. He lifted a fist and popped Bryce in the nose. Bryce saw stars. His vision cleared after a half second, just time enough to see the fist raised for another blow.

Bryce cringed. But the blow did not land; another hand covered the fist and pulled back. Nate spun about, and the figure now visible behind him stabbed fingers towards his throat. Nate went down gagging, and the figure knocked the wind out of him with a well-placed kick.

Bryce wiped blood from his nose and tried to make sense of the situation. Someone had removed Croft Manor from around Hillary, and the alley just did not look right sitting around the impeccably dressed butler in its place. Especially the gold watch-chain. The alley simply did not belong with that gold watch-chain.

He was still pondering this issue when Hillary grabbed his wrist and, none too gently, hauled him to his feet and down the alley.

"Wait," said Bryce, and, more loudly, "Wait!" when Hillary ignored him. Bryce twisted his wrist at the same time that he wrenched at the fingers around his wrist. Hillary let go, grabbed his other wrist, and continued down the alley. "I am not going back!" said Bryce, desperately. Hillary said nothing, and Bryce remembered that he was the type of bugger who wouldn't argue with a drunk man. Bryce briefly debated pretending to abruptly sober up, but found himself stuffed into the passenger seat of a Mini before he had made up his mind on that one. He fumbled for the door latch, but Hillary had already hopped into the driver's seat, and rapped him smartly on his left hand before fastening his seatbelt. "Oy, man," Bryce complained softly, cradling the injured wrist and his injured pride. Hillary said nothing, and the tightness around his mouth was lost on Bryce as the smaller man leaned out of the open window in a dark funk. They sped down the road.

That Jeep, he decided, was definitely heading towards them too quickly.

Then the world turned upside-down.

xxxxxx

Lara stepped out of the Aston-Martin and walked towards the tight knot of emergency vehicles, their blue strobes lending the scene a surreal quality. She had expected trouble when Hillary left to go find Bryce after his unexplained two-day absence, but she had expected it to be of a more personal nature. A handsome, square-jawed bobby detached himself from the cluster of whut's-all-this-ers around the scene and walked towards Lara.

"Lady Croft?"

"Sergeant," she replied with a nod. "Thank you for the call."

The bobby nodded towards the heap of blue metal that had been a Mini. "Pulled your name from the registration. Hit and then run off, looks like. The passenger was unconscious, but the docs on the scene say he's fine, just a little knocked about."

Lara thanked the sergeant, then walked to the former Mini. A solid hit on the left side, she decided, at a good rate of speed. She reached into the remains of the back seat - and frowned. She pulled out the bag that Hillary had taken with him, with his hunting knife and phone in it. Strange as it would be to run off after an accident, leaving Bryce behind, it would be even stranger for him to leave this behind, as well.

"All right, Lara?" Bryce's voice came from behind her.

"No, Bryce," she sighed. "Things are very much not all right."

xxxxxx

Closed eyelids were no match for the fury of the sun. It stabbed right through, penetrating to his brain in a double needle of pain. He groaned, softly. This was the mother of all hangovers.

He did a quick personal inventory, and decided he could not blame it all on the tequila. He had cuts and bruises on his upper body, and his nose was particularly tender. He relaxed and closed his eyes, waiting for the memories of the night before to return in an abrupt and humiliating fashion. They obliged, exceeding his expectations, and he groaned in earnest.

Excessively loud footsteps came towards him. He dared cracking his eyes open, and saw Lara in front of him, her face a stormcloud. She handed him two tablets and a glass of water. "Quickly. I need your brain working again."

Bryce swallowed the ibuprofen gratefully. He looked around, noting that he was on a couch in the living room. "What happened?"

"You need to tell me that." Her voice would make a glacier shiver.

"Lara, I told you when I came that I couldn't stay. It's not me nature. I'm too independent to be tied down."

"Fine. So you were out demonstrating your independence by getting blind drunk. What next?"

Only blind drunk? Hillary didn't tell her about... ? He looked around. "Oy, where's Hillary?"

"That's what I was hoping you would tell me."

Bryce closed his eyes and willed his memory to clear. "He picked me up and dumped me in the Mini. We were takin' a straight shot back, near as I can tell. Then that Jeep rammed us, and I passed out."

"What can you remember about the Jeep?"

Bryce shrugged. "Darkish color."

"Bloody great help you are," she snapped. She turned on her heel and stalked towards the door.

Bryce glowered, stood, and shoved his hands in his pockets. He froze. "Lara."

She turned to watch as he pulled a folded piece of heavy parchment out of his right-hand trouser pocket. "This ain't mine."

"Read it."

He unfolded it and read the terse message aloud.

_You stole Ivan's sword. I lost a man. Do you have to lose one before I get it back?_

Lara had unsheathed a knife from her hip while he read this, and was idly tapping it against her bottom teeth. "Bastard. Ivan the Terrible's sword is mine, fair and square."

"That whoppin' great scimitar you came back with last summer? You said it was a smooth job."

"It was. This bloke... Blond chap? A little fat... He was incompetent. He got to the site first by pure luck, but he dithered around while I went around a side way and took the sword. His toady pulled a gun on me. I sliced him - I didn't think I hurt him _that_ badly. But regardless." She pointed the knife at Bryce. "That was business. This is personal."

"R... ight," said Bryce, swallowing. "What are we going to _do?_"

"You are going to help me identify this bastard. Then we are going to find him, and I am going to explain the rules to him." She muttered names as they walked to Bryce's study. "Toby? Tony? His last name sounded like..."

xxxxxx

Hillary took stock before opening his eyes. He was no longer moving; he was sitting on a chair in a room that was quiet and still. His hands were cuffed behind his back, arms turned around the back slats to keep them attached to the chair. They were fastened correctly, almost to the point of cutting off circulation; the typical amateur mistake was to fasten them too loosely. His feet were bare. His head was sore from when he had been pistol-whipped, but he felt otherwise unharmed.

He opened his eyes. He was in a dim, small, windowless room, one that looked hastily converted to its current function as prison. It was painted in a soothing dark red stippled over a slightly lighter red, and had the air of a guest bedroom for the least popular guest. He had been stripped to his undershirt and trousers. The only other furniture in the room was a dark brown wooden chair, seemingly the partner of the one he occupied. A man of middling years sat in it, smoking a cigarette with a nervous air. He was slightly overweight, with a florid face and thinning fair hair. He appeared to have been waiting for Hillary to wake up.

"You work for Croft?" His voice was upper-class in accent, but undistinguished otherwise. Hillary said nothing. "So-called Lady Croft stole something of mine and killed one of my men. Not exactly cricket, what?"

He stood and walked over to Hillary. "I just want my sword back. Nobody else needs to get hurt if you help me negotiate with her."  
Hillary kept his silence. He had made a living of trusting Lara, and was not about to stop now.

"I don't _need_ you to help," the man said. "It would merely make this easier. For both of us." He slowly and deliberately stubbed his cigarette out on Hillary's chest, then left the room. The lock clicked behind him.

Hillaty expelled his breath in a hiss that turned into a rude word. That had _hurt_. He started to explore any possibilities his unbound feet offered.

xxxxxx

An afternoon of Lara racking her brains and Bryce hacking into a number of public and private databases had finally given them a name and an address. Lara looked at the florid face on Bryce's LCD. "Toby Timmons. I might be a bastard, too, if I had a name like that."

"What next, Lara?"

"Have some dinner and put your chauffeur hat on. We're paying him a visit."

Lara had Bryce pull into a space a block away from the target. Lara checked the quiet street, then slipped out of the nondescript grey VW Golf - her Stealthmobile. Timmons lived in a moderately affluent part of London; the houses were sizeable, though not mansions, and the grounds were well-tended, if small.

Lara slipped over the stone wall of the closest house and sat in the shadows. All was quiet. She was dressed in a black catsuit, with black boots and gloves; with her black hair and olive skin, she would be all but invisible in the shadows. She trotted across the grounds, keeping low, and hopped the fence into the next yard. She waited to make sure all was quiet again, and then crossed to the next yard.

She made her quiet way to Timmons's house in this manner, and sat in his small, neat yard, considering. The bedrooms would likely be on the second floor, but the house was built in a style of architecture that felt wide lintels were beautiful. Lara shimmied silently up a drainpipe, and began to work her way down the windows. The third set of windows revealed an occupied double-bed. Lara drew a knife from her leg sheath, and made quick and quiet work of the window latch. She held her breath as she opened it, but it slid open smoothly and without a creak. She slipped over to the bed. A woman of middle years, dumpy, hair in curlers, slept alone in the bed.

Bugger.

Lara put her knife to the woman's throat, then clamped her hand firmly over the woman's mouth. The woman woke at this and screamed, but the sound did not make it past Lara's hand.

"I want Toby. Your husband?" The woman nodded, eyes the size of skeet. "I am going to take my hand off of your mouth, you are going to tell me where your husband is. Then I will leave. If you scream, I will cut your throat. Clear?" The woman nodded.

Lara removed her hand. The woman said, in an unexpectedly sweet and melodic voice, "On holiday. In France, with his business partners. I don't know where."

Lara nodded and slipped back out the window. She climbed the fence and ran back to the car along the street. "Drive," she ordered. Bryce drove.

xxxxxx

"So, yer goin' to France?" Bryce asked.

Lara was standing at his shoulder in his study, sharpening her knife on a whetstone. "No. He lied to his wife. He's nearby - and, I'm guessing, at a friend's place. See what you can dig up in terms of friends and associates."

"Blimey, Lara," Bryce sighed, "this'll take a while."

"You'd better hope he's antisocial. I get the feeling that we don't have much time."

xxxxxx

Having his feet free gave Hillary some measure of mobility, but it was of little use. He could hear nothing when he pressed his ear to the door. The chair was good solid wood, and although the joins of slats to base were not as solid and could likely be dislodged with a few solid whacks against the wall, the noise would undoubtedly be noticed. His kidnappers were not professionals, but they had studied enough to avoid many common amateur mistakes. Hillary sat back down and set himself to trying to ease the posts out more quietly.

xxxxxx

Bryce was once again chauffeur; Lara sat in the passenger's seat with a wad of addresses, making notes as she passed each one. She immediately discounted the ones that had children in the yard; it's all but impossible to keep an uninvited guest secret in a house with children. She made further judgments based on size, rooms with windows, and flats. By the time Bryce had driven her back to the manor, she had narrowed the suspects down to three.

"You're goin' to pay them a visit tonight, Lara?"

She sat back in the passenger's seat and considered that. "No. I think they're going to send me an ultimatum tonight. There's no time." She came to a decision. "Stay here. Call me when Toby the twat makes contact. I'm going hunting." She took the driver's seat, and Bryce walked back to the manor.

xxxxxx

The door opened while Hillary was still working at the chair. The florid man walked in. He had a strange, oddly familiar smell clinging to him. "Time for a change of venue," he said, walking behind Hillary. And Hillary suddenly recognized that smell, as a chloroformed cloth was held to his face.

xxxxxx

From her perch in a tree two houses down, Lara watched as two men carried a large, cloth-covered bundle to an unmarked grey van that was waiting in the driveway. She would bet both of her semiautomatics that this was the place. She slipped out of the tree and into the car, driving around the block slowly to keep the van just barely in sight.

Her phone buzzed, and she answered, still tailing the van through moderate Sunday evening traffic.

"Lara," Bryce's nervous voice said, "I have him on the other line. Swap sword for Hillary, no cops or MI-6 or they'll kill him, all that rubbish. Behind Fenchurch station at 8pm."

"Tell him I'm in the bath, and I'll be there."

"Will you?"

"No, you will." She hung up.

They were not heading directly to the rendezvous point. Lara was briefly confused - and then had to smile as they turned into a car park next to a convenience store. Beer run. This was as good a time as any.

Toby and a slender red-headed man exited the van and walked to the store, leaving only the driver up front. Lara dug around in the car and located the broad-brimmed, floppy hat she kept in the car for sunny days. She put it on and walked to the van. The driver might not know her, but the floppy brim shadowed her face. "Excuse me, sir..." she asked in a meek voice.

The driver stuck his head out of the window. "Whut?"

She smashed his face with the butt of her gun, and he fell back into the van without a sound. Lara looked around, but no passersby had seemed to notice anything amiss. She pulled the keys from the ignition and walked to the back of the van. She opened the doors and hopped in. The man sitting in the back looked bored, and went for the gun on his hip far too slowly. Lara felled him with a swift kick to the solar plexus, followed by an uppercut.

The interior of the van was dark and cluttered, but Lara had little trouble finding the cloth-wrapped bundle she had seen them carry in. She pulled back a corner of the cloth and saw that it was indeed Hillary, bleary and smelling of chloroform.

"Just lie still another minute," she said quietly. She covered him back up, hopped out, closing the doors behind her, and slipped underneath the van.

Two pairs of feet came up to the van only a few minutes later. They walked to the passenger's side door, and Lara heard a startled profanity. A bag of bottles was dropped on the ground, and all four feet trotted to the back of the van and hopped in. Lara sniffed. Amateurs.

She slid forward, twisted, grabbed the bumper, and pulled herself lightly into the van's interior, pulling the door closed with one hand and drawing her gun with the other. The red-headed man had his back to her, and she hit him hard on the back of the neck with her gun's butt. Toby was on his way to his feet, and she stepped forward and pressed the gun to his forehead. He froze.

"There are rules to this business. You would do well to learn them. First. Finders, keepers. Second. Anything goes on the raid, but once back home," she leaned in closer, "be civilized." She stepped back. "The sword is mine. Piss off." She kicked him as hard as she could in the groin - which is quite hard - and he folded with a pained wheeze. She pulled the cloth off of Hillary. "Come on. Time to go."  
He was still very woozy, and she had to pull his arm over her shoulder and help him to the car. She ran back to the van, grabbed the beer, and tossed it in the back seat. "Back home," she said with a smile.

xxxxxx

Hillary was fairly conscious again when they arrived back at the manor. He assured Lara that he was fine, in need of just a hot bath and some rest. This lead to a fairly predictable altercation in the bathroom as Lara attempted to get his clothes off and see for herself - only partly out of concern, and mostly to irritate the prudish butler. He finally managed to fend her off. He drew a steaming hot bath, tossed off his filthy clothes, and settled in with a sigh.

Lara sat on a couch in the living room with a book and one of the swiped beers. She put her feet up, and was two chapters in before her phone buzzed.

"Lara?" asked Bryce. "I've been here an hour, and they haven't shown up."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Bryce," she replied, voice dripping with saccharine sincerity. "I forgot to tell you - I took care of it. Come back."

Bryce muttered a few bad words and hung up.

Bryce walked into the living room. Lara looked up from her book, jerked her head towards the staircase, and said, "Bath." She turned back to her book. Bryce mounted the staircase with a heavy tread.

xxxxxx

Hillary called "Come in," to the knock at the door, expecting Lara. Instead, Bryce's sharp-edged face came around the edge of the door, followed by his lean body. Hillary looked away.

"All right, man?" asked Bryce.

"Not bad."

Bryce sat next to the bath. "I'm sorry."

"For running off like that?" Hillary scrubbed fiercely at his chest. "Why did you do it?"

"I needed out, mate. I needed a break."

"That wasn't a break; that was a bender."

Bryce sighed and rested his head against the smooth porcelain. "I was talking to Lara last week. She asked me if I loved you."

An uncomfortable silence settled over them. Hillary finally broke it. "And you couldn't decide."

"This ain't the way I work. I don't think I've loved anyone in me life." He stared fiercely at his shoes. "I'm not _used_ to this."

Hillary turned the soap in his hands. "If I have to share you, I can't let myself love you. That's not how _I_ work."

Bryce looked up. "I'm not askin' you to do that. I'm askin' you to..." he frowned, pondering.

"To what?" Hillary asked, testily.

"To forgive me. I'm tryin', I am."

Hillary put wet fingers tentatively on Bryce's head, and started to run them through Bryce's hair. "Try harder."

Bryce smiled and put his hand on Hillary's cheek, pulling his head down. They sat cheek to cheek for a moment, and then Bruce turned and kissed Hillary on the lips. "I will."


	7. Strangers

Another paper hanky ripped out of the box with a _fwip_, the one after it popping obediently half-out of the box. Hillary sighed. He stood on the feeding end of the hanky chain; they were soaked in Lara's hands and deposited in the wastebasket on her other side. She blew her nose with an unladylike honk, tossed the hanky into the basket, and grabbed a fresh one.

It was unlike Lara to react to a lover leaving her in this manner. It was unusual to have a lover leave her, period - she usually did the leaving - but on the rare event, she tended more towards physical activity or a bender (or the former, followed by the latter) than towards a sob. Under other circumstances, Hillary might have been more sympathetic and kindly. But when you warn someone of the dangers posed by a hot stove, over and over, and that someone proceeds to hop up and plant her muscular bum right on the hot stove, it is rather hard to be sympathetic when she complains about the burn.

The two of them have an unusual relationship. He loves her more dearly than a brother would, but not as a lover would; he is not jealous of her lovers, but he does consider them all to be unworthy of her. If he cared to rank them, though, he thought as she yanked another tissue, Terry Sheridan would come in dead last.

There's no arguing with Lara when she wants something, and she wanted Terry. Understandable, in some ways; he was a handsome man, very charming, very capable, and there is no doubt in the minds of either Lara or Hillary that he loved Lara deeply. But Hillary knows that love is not always enough, and the depth of Terry's greed and ambition were greater than any love, Hillary was sure. It gave him no pleasure to be justified in his suspicions. He sighed and opened another box.

"I'm s.s.s.sorry." Lara wiped her eyes. "I just... thought he loved me."

"He did love you. He just happened to be a bastard. They're far from an endangered species."

"I was stupid, wasn't I?" Lara sniffed.

"Yes, you were."

Lara stopped sniffling and glared at Hillary. "You're a bastard, too, you know. You have no poetry in your soul."

Hillary was taken aback. "I do indeed have poetry, but I also have common sense. I find it useful."

Lara screwed up the current tissue and tossed it, dry, into the box. "One day, mark my words." She pulled off her button-down and tossed it onto the chair. "One day, you will do something equally stupid, and I will say 'Terry' and laugh, you twit." She stormed off towards the back yard in shirt-sleeves and shorts.

Hillary whistled as he picked up the shirt and carried it upstairs. She'll be back to herself again in no time.

xxxxxx

The house was filled with the clang of metal and the swoosh of displaced air falling back after being sliced through. Hillary was startled, and beginning to make the progression past startlement to exuberance. He actually had the upper hand in this brawl. Lara's preternatural agility and cunning almost always got the best of his greater reach and strength, but today, the swords danced weightlessly in his hands as he parried and thrust, and Lara was grudgingly giving ground. Her expression was becoming increasingly irate as she was pushed to the defensive.

As they crossed the doorway into the study, Bryce looked up from his current unnamable pile of project in response to the noise. The side of Lara's mouth quirked up, and she caught his thrust on crossed swords and said, in a voice too low for Bryce to hear, "Terry." And she laughed.

Seven years might just as well not have passed, as Hillary dropped his guard in surprise. She swept his feet, dropping him to the ground with a thud that made the desks shake, and swept a sword to his throat. She stopped with it resting gently across its windpipe. "I win," she said with a grin.

xxxxxx

Hillary showered and brooded. Had he truly fallen for Terry? He lathered his hair and thought about Bryce. Like Terry, he was charming. Unconventionally handsome where Terry was universally so, but handsome nonetheless. And in love - Hillary did not doubt that. But the negatives? Bryce was an emotional sink, pulling in emotion without yielding anything back. There was no affection in public, only stolen kisses and frantic sex in the dark. He was a boomerang; he would run, if held too close. So far, he had always come back, but the waiting without knowing if he would - ah, that was the indecision and fear that sent Lara to a chair with a box of tissues. Not knowing. Seeing someone who was both a lover and a stranger, and not knowing who he would choose to be the next time you met.

Hillary stood in the doorway of the study, toweling his hair dry, looking at the sharp jawline and intense stare of the stranger he loved. The intense stare was loving, enraptured - and directed at the pile of electronics in front of him. Hillary watched silently for uncountable minutes, and left as quietly as he had come in.

xxxxxx

He was awake as soon as Bryce's hand touched the doorknob. Old habits die hard; a mouse couldn't enter while he was sleeping without waking him up. He lay there, tense, sensing the soft footsteps approaching the bed; he lay awake as a lean body slipped under the covers next to him, and cool fingers touched his cheek. He shivered as thin lips touched his, stubble brushing his nose. The lips paused. "Wot?"

"You only kiss me in the dark."

A pause sat in the room like a third person, an unwelcome observer. Bryce finally evicted it. "You never visit my home." The lips withdrew, the mattress rose as a weight was lifted from it, and the soft footsteps retreated invisibly from the room.

xxxxxx

MI-6 agents were a rare and unwelcome sight at Croft Manor. Hillary offered them a seat and some tea, then gritted his teeth and hunted down Lara, knowing that he would be requested to offer them the door instead. He eventually persuaded her to meet with them. An icily polite conversation ensued. They attempted to ask for her help in the relevance of a statuette that they had found in a raid of a gunrunner's headquarters without actually admitting that they needed help. Lara attempted to tell them to have intercourse with themselves without actually using any common words for self-intercourse. Hillary tried to keep the temperature in the room above absolute zero. The statuette intrigued her, he could tell, and if she was going to take this job, she'd best not burn too many bridges. It was towards the end of this icy and uncomfortable conversation that Bryce came in from his trailer, unshaven and dressed in his normal layabout gear of slacks and an undershirt. He crossed in front of the impeccably suited MI-6 agents, bent down, and kissed Hillary throughly and with a great deal of tongue before continuing through to the kitchen with a "Mornin'" tossed behind. The agents coughed uncomfortably, and Lara hid her smile with a cup of tea.

Bloody hell, thought Hillary. Now I'll have to visit that trailer.


	8. Storm

Notes: Gracias for the reviews. I know this is a very limited fandom, so I write it for my own pleasure, but if I can convert anyone else to it, all the better. I also accept concrit, even blunt concrit, gratefully.  
Part 1 of 3.

The day was beyond warm. It was beyond hot. A merciless sun beat down on browning grass and cracked earth. Humidity thickened the air to a consistency one could almost part with a hand. Insects droned a hypnotic monotone. No breath of wind moved; it was as if the air molecules were trapped in the same senescence of heat as the humans were. Not a single cloud dared to drift across the path of that hot sun.

The shade of the trailer was only nominally better than the glare of the sun. Bryce sat in his chair in a sweat-soaked undershirt and boxers, his bare feet up on his desk, and tried not to move. It had been a hot summer, but this day was definitely the worst it had gotten. He took a long, slow breath of muggy air, and expelled it as "I... can't... take... much... more... of... this."

Hillary looked up. He was cleaning Lara's spare set of pistols, and they sat in many pieces on the folding table in front of him. He had been working at this task slowly and meticulously all afternoon. He was feeling the heat, as well; he was shirtless, and his curly hair stuck to his head in sweaty ringlets. "We should have a storm by this evening. That should help."

"There ain't a cloud in the sky."

"No, but the birds are flying close to the ground. They're more sensitive to pressure differentials than we are."

Bryce snorted. "They're just knackered by the heat."

Hillary smiled and picked up the bottle of oil. Bryce tried to put some more work into the vid headset he had been designing as a surprise for Lara, but the tools slipped out of his hands, and sweat continually threatened to drip off of the end of his sharp nose and into the innards. He gave it up as a bad job and picked up the trashy novel he was midway through.

The oppressive weather lasted through the evening. Nightfall brought only minor relief. They made uncomfortable and sticky love in Bryce's cot, and then rolled to opposite sides immediately afterwards, gasping for breath in the stale air. Bryce could never stay awake after sex, not even in weather like this, and was out almost immediately.

xxxxxx

He wasn't sure what time he woke up, but it must have been very, very early in the morning. It was still dark, and it was very quiet. Hillary had rolled over and flung an arm over his chest in the middle of the night, and he sighed at the excessively warm weight of it. Then the blinds rattled - announcing the entry of a whiff of cool, moist air. Bryce drew in a deep breath of it, gratefully. A stiffer breeze followed, and then another, making the blinds jump and dance. Bryce carefully moved Hillary's arm, slipped out of the cot, and walked to the window.

In the faint light of the sliver of moon, he could just barely see the front of roiling purple clouds. A storm was indeed coming in, and quickly. A hard blast of cool, wet air came in, and Bryce grabbed the blinds to keep them still. He raised them. Huge drops began to fall, beating a steady rhythm on the distant driveway and a rattling tattoo on the metal trailer's roof. Bryce shivered as more cool blasts of air came in through the window. Lightning flickered on the horizon, followed a few seconds later by the muted growl of thunder. It's frightening, a good storm; and thrilling as well. They made him feel small, inconsequential, impotent, utterly alone...

"Bryce..." a sleepy voice came from the bed.

Bryce came back to himself and shivered. He crawled back into the bed; the hand that touched his waist felt unnaturally warm. "You're freezing," Hillary mumbled. He pulled Bryce closer, and this time he was grateful for the warmth that drove off the storm's chill and let him drift back to sleep.

xxxxxx

Bryce awoke to a gentle shaking underneath him. The morning sun that hit his eyelids was filtered through air cleaned and cooled by the night's rain. The day was one of perfectly balanced summer warmth, and Bryce rolled on his back and stretched out with a satisfied smile.

"Come to the manor. I'll make some breakfast."

Bryce opened his eyes. Hillary was wrapping a dressing gown around himself, and prodding the bed again with one foot. Bryce frowned.

"I don't feel like moving."

"You didn't move all day yesterday. Get up." Hillary prodded more insistently. Bryce grumbled, but got up on his hands and knees and pulled a clean set of boxers out of the chest-of-drawers. He slipped them on and walked out of the trailer, scratching his scalp and stretching. He walked around the trailer to look out over the vast lawn - and stopped.

"Hey."

He turned, and saw Hillary walking towards the manor. "I said, hey, wait, man!"

Hillary turned and gave Bryce a petulant look. "What?"

"Come look at this."

Hillary rolled his eyes, but walked back to where Bryce was standing. The slender man pointed at the marks of boot-prints in the soft earth around the trailer; fresh prints left in earth churned to mud by the storm the night before.

Hillary's brow furrowed. He looked left and right, then turned left and followed the bootprints with a purposeful stride that contrasted oddly with his blue silk robe. Bryce stifled a giggle and trotted off on his heels.

"They made a mess." Hillary muttered. The bootprints led to one end of the grounds, terminating in a muddle that could have been purposeful action and could have been milling about. More prints led back across the lawn, ending in the same muddle. All of the prints seemed to stop and start at the long driveway.

"Well, that's right strange, innit?"

Hillary sighed. "It's very odd. If they wanted to rob the place, why didn't they? If they were feeling out the security, why be so obvious?"

"Mebbe they were just lookin' for Lara."

"All they could tell from here is whether the lights in her room were on, and they could tell that from the driveway." Hillary's frown deepened. "Now, what to do...?"

"I know exactly what I'm gonna do."

"What?"

"Take a shower." Bryce headed back towards the manor. Hillary looked down, seeming to notice for the first time how he was dressed, and hurried to join him.

xxxxxx

Half an hour later, Bryce sat at his desk in jeans and boots. Hillary was in what Bryce called his "full buttlin' getup," checking the alarm system.

"They _did_ set off the perimeter alarms, after all. I thought you wired those to your trailer?"

"Yeah, but I turned the volume down. I didn't want 'em botherin' us."

Hillary sighed and straightened. "That does tend to defeat the purpose of an alarm."

Bryce shrugged nervously. "Pretty much, but I wanted me sleep."

Hillary glared. "Well, whatever it was they were planning, they caught us with our pants down."

"Maybe they're voyeurs."

"Well, all we can do is hope that they underestimate our readiness," Hillary said, pacing. "And, er - make sure that the readiness actually _exists_ from now on, yes?"

"Maybe we impressed 'em." Bryce grinned.

"You _do_ have a one-track mind."

"Nah, five. I counted. You know, I really do think they were just lookin' to see if Lara's in."

Hillary stopped pacing and sighed. "I wish I knew where she is. She didn't tell me."

"Whoa, she didn't? I guess I shouldn't tell yeh, either."

Hillary looked vaguely hurt. "I don't believe this," he muttered. He added, more loudly, "Check all of the alarms. Freeze the volume somewhere in the _loud_ range, please." He walked off towards the arms room.

Bryce sighed. This was going to take a large chunk of the day.

xxxxxx

Bryce walked back to the study, chewing on a piece of cold toast. He had checked every sensor manually over the past four hours, and was ready to sit down and let the computer do the rest. He started the software diagnostics and leaned back in his chair with a sigh.

Hillary got up from his chair in the sitting room and walked over to Bryce. He held out a small black revolver. Bryce raised his eyebrows as he chewed. "I'll blow me knob off, man."

Hillary put it in his hand and demonstrated. "Safety on, safety off. Trigger. Keep the safety on until you need to point it at somebody and look bad-arse. Don't shoot until you see the whites of their lips."

"I got a doctorate in looking bad-arse," muttered Bryce, taking the gun gingerly and setting it down on his desk. He glanced at the monitor. "Time to greet company, Mr. Butler." A black Mercedes sedan was pulling up the long driveway. Hillary straightened his tie and walked out to the entryway.

xxxxxx

He stepped out of the massive doors and walked down the steps to the end of the driveway, where the black sedan had rolled to a halt. A young, broad-shouldered, black-capped driver got out, and opened the rear driver's side door. A rather small man with a thick head of snowy white hair stepped out. He was wearing an exquisitely tailored black silk suit, and walked with an air of almost palpable self-assurance.

"Good afternoon, sir. May I help you?" Hillary asked.

The man walked towards Hillary. "Perhaps you may," he said in a smooth, measured voice as he drew close. "I am looking for Lady Croft."

"I am afraid she is not in. What is your business? Perhaps I can be of service."

"A pity. Perhaps the man Bryce is in? My business is actually with him."

"He is not." Out of the corner of his eye, Hillary had been watching the black-capped driver walk quietly around the two and start to mount the stairs. He backed up the stairs to keep the driver from maneuvering between him and the doors. After the events of last night, his normally respectable paranoia had been taken up a notch.

"Interesting," said the man, walking up the stairs as Hillary backed up them. "Are you sure you're not mistaken?"

Hillary could see the driver's hand moving to his belt. He didn't try to reach the driver; he was too far away to reach him in time. Instead, he grabbed the white-haired man by the throat, swung him around, and reached across his chest to pull out the gun in the waist holster that the exquisitely-tailored suit was absolutely not tailored to conceal. The driver now had his gun out and pointed at Hillary, and Hillary had the white-haired man in a chokehold with his own gun pointed at his head.

It was a classic stalemate.

And in his peripheral vision, Hillary saw that the manor doors were still open. _Bryce. Shut the bloody doors._ He must have seen enough by now to know to do that.

"This does not appear to be a tenable situation for anybody involved," the white-haired man said, speaking more loudly. He remained completely calm and composed. "It does not have to end badly, however. If Bryce is listening, I'm sure he realizes that."  
The door creaked, and Bryce stepped out. Every foul word that Hillary knew seemed inadequate. He had put on his black leather jacket, incongruous on this warm summer day, and held both empty hands out at his sides. "It's cool, mates." He glanced nervously from Hillary to the driver and back again.

"If your friend here puts the gun away," said the white-haired man, "it will make things much more civilized."

"Please, Hil, put it away." Bryce looked at him with pleading eyes. They struck Hillary numb, and it felt like a stranger's body who loosened his grip and let the gun be taken out of his hand. The man straightened his suit jacket, replaced the gun in its holster, and took Bryce by the upper arm. "Come." They walked down to the car. The driver kept his gun trained on Hillary as he walked slowly down the stairs after them. The white-haired man opened the door and pushed Bryce towards it; he gave Hillary one last apologetic look before ducking inside. Once they were both in the car, the driver slipped back in himself, pulled a swift U-turn, and headed away.

Hillary stood on the tops of the steps. Not ten minutes had passed since the car had arrived. The silence it left in its wake was deafening, like the calm before a storm.


	9. Storm, pt 2

Notes: Part 2 of 3.

"You checked the plate on the car?"

"It was rented. The driver paid cash and used a badly forged ID."

Lara paced back and forth, tapping an elegant finger against her chin. Hillary sat in a chair and alternately seethed and worried.

"Where _were_ you?"

"Oh, a friend's wedding. I stayed over last night. Sorry, I forgot to tell you."

"Thank you, madam."

"Oh, stop that. The weather had me on edge. I was ready to bite your heads off, both of you. I thought I'd take a few days away."

Hillary sighed and turned back to the matter at hand. "Bryce seemed to know the man."

"But you don't?"

"No. If it's a disguise, it's a _very_ good one. If it's someone I used to know who's changed over the years, he's changed a _lot_."

"We can't just _sit_ here." Lara was obviously almost as agitated as Hillary. And obviously had just as little an idea where to start. Someone known to neither of them, with no apparent connection to either of them, and with nothing desired of either of them, had come along and taken Bryce as if he were a lucky coin found in the street. Lara walked outside and paced again around the spot where the car had parked, stooped to the ground. No matter how carefully she looked, not a chunk of dirt or drop of oil had fallen off of the car, let alone a more substantial clue. She walked back inside. Hillary was pacing in the hallway and trying, unsuccessfully, to think.

"Let's go," she said, curtly.

He stopped pacing. "Where?"

"Police station. There's a bobby who owes me a favor. Let's look through the list of wanted men - see if you recognize anybody."

"Lara," Hillary ground, "I don't think these are exactly the types to lift stereos from cars and grow marijuana in their bathtubs..."

Lara spun to face him and yelled, "Do you have any better ideas churning through your stupid thick head? Or do you want to pace for a few days and see if that brings him back?" She stormed out of the room like a small and elegant volcano. Hillary, tight-lipped, followed.

xxxxxx

He sat in a stiff wooden chair an hour later, looking through yet another page of photographs with eyes that were rapidly tiring of keeping focus. He had noted a few Possibles for the driver, but no definites, and nobody who looked anything like the elderly passenger. It irritated him to no end; some part of him just _knew_ that this was not the right way to find Bryce. But the more he tried to think of another means of going about this, the more he had to admit that Lara was right - they had no other way. He glanced through the frosted glass door to where she stood outside with the officer who was letting him look through this book. She was being as charming as hell. It must be grating on her. He turned back to the book.

xxxxxx

In a dim white room that could have been next door and could have been hundreds of miles away, Bryce sat in front of a monitor and sweated. He tilted his chair back, sipping a glass of water and looking at the screen of code in front of him. He checked it for errors. He checked it again. He compiled part of it and checked it again. He wondered what he was going to do.

There is only so long one can stall, after all. He had to show measurable progress, or he and the two people closest to him were dead. He had not been told as such, but the implication was clear. And, he was sure, if he finished the project, they would kill him anyway. There was no way for him to help them and not know the clichéd Too Much. He nibbled on the only nail that was not already down to the quick. He was going to have to conserve this one, he thought clinically.

"How goes it?" asked a smooth voice behind him. The white-haired man stood up from the easy chair, walked across the small living area, past the two shuttered windows, and mounted the stairs to the alcove where Bryce sat in front of a lone flatpanel attached to three very expensive computers.

"Ducky, Uncle Tony," Bryce said. He could not keep the note of sullenness out of his voice.

Tony laughed humorlessly. "Come, now, Bryce," he said, "Keep your pecker up. You like a good challenge, I know - especially when it's in _such_ a good cause." He walked back down to the living area, refilling his drink at the bar, and sat back down. He picked up a newspaper, but Bryce knew that the man's attention was on him. He turned his own attention back to the code. Doing something this original and complicated on a tight schedule was like trying to pee while someone was watching. It was _hard_.

He still had one card up his sleeve, though. He knew that his uncle wouldn't expect his sister's techie, gay, pacifistic son to have any kind of weapon, so he had not been searched. The gun Hillary had given him still sat in the pocket of his leather jacket. And so he continued to wear the heavy black thing, despite the discomfort of an autumn jacket in summery temperatures. Just as long, he thought as he wiped clammy sweat from his forehead, as I actually get a decent chance to use it where it will do some good. This was not Bryce's forte - running around like Lara, kicking people, shooting people, thinking on his feet. He wished desperately that she were there to pull him out of this - or that Hillary were there to give him sound advice. But neither were, and he had put himself into this to keep them safe.

The more he thought about it, the sillier that decision looked in retrospect. He could have _done_ something; pulled out his weapon to tip the balance of the stalemate; pulled out some teargas from the munitions cabinet; stalled until Hillary thought of something better... even going down in flames would have been preferable to walking meekly into this like a sheep into a slaughterhouse.

But that man hand pointed a gun at Hillary, and he had folded like a cheap polyester suit.

_Hell._


	10. Storm, pt 3

Notes: Part 3 of 3, after Storm and Fire.

Perhaps today was warmer than yesterday. Or perhaps he was more nervous. Either way, Bryce was sweating copiously. It trickled down the small of his back, tickling. He grumbled and reached his hand around to scratch the back of his neck.

"How are we coming along?" Tony did not look up from his newspaper. "Remember, time is money."

Bryce scratched his unshaven cheek and glared over his shoulder. "Nearly there. I could use a beer."

"All in good time."

He was, indeed, nearly there, and did not have any better ideas about what to do before he got to that point than he did when this all started. He bit his last remaining fingernail down to the quick. That tears it, he thought. He made a decision, and typed for about two more hours. He sighed, cracked his back, and turned around.

"Ready."

xxxxxx

Hillary had slept very badly, plagued by strange nightmares of Simon stealing his watch and running, and eviscerating him when he tried to give chase. He finally left his sweaty bed before the sun came up. He dressed and began his rounds, mechanically cleaning while still pondering the dilemma. Aside from the fact that the man and Bryce knew each other, there simply were no clues. Bryce had rarely talked about his past, and had not given many details when he had.

But perhaps I can find a thousand words elsewhere, Hillary thought.

He walked out to Bryce's trailer. He started to rummage under the cot. A few cardboard boxes held all of Bryce's valuables; important documents, old treasures of dubious identity, and one shoebox full of photographs. Hillary began to flip through the snapshots. Hundreds of Bryces looked back, hundreds of scenes, hundreds of ages. Bryce was the type who changed very little over the years; Hillary had to estimate times from yellowing on the backs and details in the backgrounds. He recognized a picture of Bryce's mother, a stern-faced woman with her grey-streaked hair pulled back in a bun. Bryce looked uncomfortable at her side. Bryce looked more at ease in pictures where friends, perhaps lovers, stared back at the camera with him, and graced Hillary with a broad smile in a few of those snapshots.

But it was not a comfortable or at-ease Bryce who stood in a suit next to a trimly attired man with a plastic smile. Bryce's face was completely blank, despite the man's arm being draped over his shoulders. The man's hair was black and his face held fewer lines, but it was still unmistakable.

Hillary flipped the photograph over. The back was blank. He looked through the box again, but there were no more pictures of this man. He replaced the box under the cot, and carried the photo back to the manor.

xxxxxx

Tony stood behind Bryce, his excitement ill-concealed. "Well, shall we see how well you do? Go ahead, impress me." His smile was predatory.

Bryce pulled himself back up to the computer, and began an elegant dance. His first and best love, computers; he _understands_ them, inside and out. He gently teased out passwords. He passed smoothly into the bank, leaving no ripples in his wake. Accounts were accessed. Money was moved.

A great deal of money was moved.

He finessed assets from certain accounts to his targets. He pulled back, brushing his footprints away as he left. He withdrew, and sat back, hands off of the keyboard, with a sigh.

"_Very_ well done, my boy. Your mother would be proud."

In the reflection at the dark edges of the flatpanel, Bryce saw Tony straighten slightly, and saw his hand move inside of his jacket. And he knew there was no more time. He couldn't wait to be rescued.

Bryce's sweaty hand tightened around the gun in his pocket, the safety clicked off in the chattering of keys an hour ago. He took a deep breath and spun around, pulling the trigger as he came to face Tony.

The look of surprise on the older man's face was almost worth the whole experience.

Blood spattered Bryce, and he could hear nothing but ringing in his ears as Toby crumpled, the gun that he was removing falling from limp fingers. Numbly, Bryce put his own gun back in his pocket and sat back, shaking. Blood pounded in his ears, and he held the arms of the chair tightly.

He felt, rather than heard, the pounding of feet on the stairs. The sound of the shot must have been heard, and whatever his uncle had told whoever else was in on this, he was not willing to gamble that a gunshot is what they had been expecting. He got to his feet, unsteadily, and staggered over to the window, knocking the blinds out of the way. The window was not locked. He slid it open and looked outside. It was after dark, but the streetlamps allowed him to see that he was on the second story of a small, neat house in a small, quiet area. Neatly tended shrubs lined the outside of the house below him.

This was not going to feel very good.

Bryce jumped out of the window, arms in front of his face, and landed in the bushes. Thorns and branches slashed at his body, cutting through his jeans and jacket. His leg slammed into a root as he tumbled through them to the ground, making his breath come out in a gasp. He tore his way out of the bushes, paused on the lawn on his hands and knees as the pain in his leg subsided to throbbing, and then hared it away from the house. He heard voices in the room above him, raised in sharp debate, and he did not want to stay around to meet the owners.

xxxxxx

He slowed to a walk a few blocks later. _I ain't in the physical shape for this kind of thing_, he admitted ruefully. But a swift walk appeared to be enough, now; he had cut across the lawns of a few dark houses and had slipped through any alleys he could find; he didn't think a pursuit had been effectively organized in what must have been the rather upsetting discovery of Tony's dead body.

And now the adrenaline had time to settle into his veins and turn sour.

He had reached a more commercial area, and found a small, dark pub to slip into. He zipped up his tattered jacket to cover his bloodstained shirt first. Once in the soothingly dim interior, he slid into a booth, and allowed himself to start to shake in earnest. He had killed a man. He had almost been killed. He fisted his hands under the table and tried to _breathe_.

"Getcha a drink, luv?"

Bryce looked up at the tired-looking blond waitress with the wan smile. He wanted nothing more than a beer. But a surreptitious patting of his pockets reminded him that he had nothing with him. Tony had taken his money in the car, and he had left any ID at the manor. "Could I use yer phone?"

xxxxxx

Hillary waited impatiently at the traffic signal. A light rain tapped soothingly on his helmet. He tossed his head irritably. He was in no mood to be soothed.

The call had come while he and Lara were pouring over the photo and making equivalent amounts of nothing over it. It was terse, and Bryce's voice wavered. "Hil? I'm at the Slug and Lettuce. Come get me, OK, mate?" Click.

So Hillary was on a motorbike, and Lara was in a car a discreet distance behind.

xxxxxx

Hillary pulled up in front of the pub. Before he could shut off the bike and dismount, a haggard-looking Bryce with his coat zipped up to his throat came running out. He grabbed the helmet that sat on the passenger's seat and tried to wrench it off. Hillary pulled Bryce's hands away, removed the helmet, tucked it under his arm, and held Bryce's shaking hands in his gloved ones. "Bryce. What happened?"

Bryce pulled his hands away and grabbed the helmet from Hillary. "Please, Hil'ry, just go." He put it on, sat on the back of the bike, and grabbed Hillary around the waist unnecessarily tightly.

They rode back to the manor, Lara behind.

xxxxxx

The evening had moved into early morning when they returned home. Hillary settled Bryce on the couch, and Lara immediately began to interrogate. "Bryce. What happened? Who was that? What is this all about?"

Bryce leaned back and closed his eyes.

Lara sighed and crossed her arms. "I hate not knowing."

Hillary sat down next to Bryce. "I don't think he's quite ready to tell us."

Lara frowned. "Well, fix him up, would you?" She walked into the living room, sat on the couch, and opened her book to the marked page.

Hillary picked Bryce up, carrying him upstairs for a bath. Bryce settled his head on Hillary's shoulder. "Warn't sure I'd see yeh again."

xxxxxx

Bryce woke to bright sun streaming in through an open window. He started to sit up, and grunted. His body was stiff and sore from neck to feet, and his left calf ached where it had hit the root. Hillary put down the book he had been reading, leaned forward in the chair that he had pulled next to the bed, and helped Bryce to sit up. "How do you feel?"

"Like yeh ran me through the wash, man." He rubbed his eyes.

"So..." Hillary's voice trailed off, and his eyes darted to a chair at the other side of the room. Bryce looked over and saw the clothes he had been wearing last night piled on the chair. His blood-spattered shirt lay on top of the pile.

"Is Lara here?" Bryce asked.

"Yes; she's downstairs having breakfast."

"Let's go down. I don't want to have to explain this twice."

xxxxxx

"Hm. I never met Tony. Your mum did mention him, but not with warmth." Lara took another bite of toast.

"She didn' like him much. One thing we both agreed on."

Hillary's brow was furrowed. "So you _did_ move money for him."

"Yeh, but I din' do a very good job. They should be able to track where the crack came from." Hillary looked around nervously. "No, mate; I mean they'll trace it back to the house Tony were in." Bryce grinned. "Wuz the least I could do for him, after all."

Lara smiled. "So, they'll pick up the conspirators, if they're still around. They'll probably figure those folk are responsible for Tony's death. Argument over money, and all. Did anybody other than Tony see you?"

"Nah. He's a control freak. Was a control freak. Only the driver."

Hillary looked over. "Lara, you're not suggesting that we cover this up?"

"Oh, no, my dear. But I see no reason to submit poor Bryce to a long day of questioning. If MI6 needs more information, they're always welcome to come by."

"No, they're not," Hillary muttered.

"If they come by about this, Hillary, I give you my permission to serve them tea." She brushed off her hands, stood, and held up a warning finger. "_One_ cup." She grinned again, and headed outside.

Bryce reached eagerly for another slice of toast. Hillary stood up and started to pace.

"Killed your first man. How was it?"

Bryce sighed. "It wuz terrible. I don't want to talk about it."

Hillary walked over to the sideboard and rested his hands on it. "Well, it's something you have to get used to, isn't it?"

Bryce looked over. "What are you on about?"

"I think you should leave."

"What the hell are you talkin' about?"

"Lara's killed men. I've killed men. It's the way this..." Hillary gave a humorless chuckle, "...organization operates. Is that really what you want?"

Bryce stood up and walked over. He tentatively put his hand on Hillary's back. It stiffened. "This had nothin' to do with you. It was my own past come back full circle. I can't run away from that, but livin' with you two has given me more of a backbone to face it, see." His hand still sat awkwardly on Hillary's back; he dropped it. "The stuff that you buggers bring in... I'll just have to live with that. I'd rather live with it than without you, yeh know."

Hillary pulled him in for a rib-cracking hug. Bryce sighed. He'd have to live with that, too.


	11. He

Habit and routine are the enemies of freedom. Bryce has always firmly believed this, and he treasured his freedom over all else. As soon as he left home, he imposed a limit on the duration of his stay in any job, no matter how lucrative, or any place of residence, no matter how pleasant. The signs of when it was time to move on were unmistakable. The walls would start to close in; he would start to have trouble sleeping. Sites became dull with familiarity. This was the time for him to pull up any roots that have started to form, and move on. His mum always tried to force holiness into him through endless repetition, and her favorite saying was that the Lord is a shepherd. Bryce has never had the desire to be a sheep; when he would stay in one place too long, he would start to dream of flocks of dumb animals huddled together on the same hilltop, kept in place by the threat of blows from a crooked staff. And then he would leave.

He did not expect the job with Lara to be any different from the dabbling he had done up to that point. Taking it in the first place was not a question; good pay and free lodging for doing nothing more than the dilettante work he engaged in for fun anyway? If that were not incentive enough, Lara intrigued him; she was outspoken, brash, crass, and wore danger about her like a fashionable scarf. His plan was clear - earn enough money to support another year of nomadic traipsing, and run.

He met the second member of the household that evening, and mentally dismissed the man. Anal-retentive, finicky, poncy - a man dressed to the pointless end of neatness, one who can cook and knows the difference between fuchsia and mauve. The type who Bryce would disregard when busy, and annoy for entertainment when bored.

And yet, it was this same man who came to pose the most significant threat to that freedom Bryce held dearer than anything else in the world.

Bryce could only pretend for so long that his interest in Hillary was purely academic. After his initial evaluation of the man, every day found him re-evaluating that impression until it lay in tatters. The incongruous capabilities and sporadic flappability of the butler intrigued him, against his better judgment. Some part of him realized the danger, and he fully intended to pack up and leave before any moves were made on either side that might tie him down. He most definitely did not intend to toss his hand right out onto the table while trapped in a tomb and certain he was going to die. He could not undo what had been done, however, and he choked on his halfhearted attempts at denial. There is no way to hang the fruit back on the branch once you have already pulled it off and taken a bite. And so Bryce found himself tentatively nibbling at the rest of it.

xxxxxx

His old patterns of deliberate randomness fell away, and he could only note their passing with regret; he could not fight it. After his one disastrous attempt to fall back into old habits, get drunk and randy, and pick up some good-looking stranger at a bar, he instead took to walking to the manor when horny. He could pretend it was a matter of convenience, but what would be the point? He is neither stupid nor dishonest, and he would have to be either or both to tell himself that his fear of becoming attached was not well on its way to being realized. These days, he looked forward too much to the rare and surprisingly playful smile he could sometimes evoke on Hillary's normally implacable face, to their banal daily conversation, even to the mere quiet presence of the other man when Bryce was preoccupied with work.

Bryce was visited with another epiphany on one of those evenings when he gave in and made the walk to the manor. The first time he and Hillary had made love, he had wrenched off the butler's clothing and tossed it heedlessly away, leaving it a sticky and wrinkled mess when they were done. It had become clear that it had been a one-time-only indulgence, and from then on, Hillary undressed himself, swatting away Bryce's hands or pushing him back onto the bed if he tried to interfere. Getting frustrated did not help, and Bryce would eventually give up and lean back on the bed to enjoy the view. Hillary's movements were always deliberate and swift, even at such a trivial task. He would pull off his tie first, hanging it on the rack, and then shrug out of his coat and shrug it right back onto a hanger. The vest would follow; shoes toed off and nudged into a row with their fellows, and the pants hung up to preserve the crease. Shirt, undershirt, boxers and socks would be shunted into the hamper.

Bryce watched it all unfold in front of him - and realized that his observation of this act was now a routine. He was domesticated.  
To his horror, all he felt was the urge to screw, not the urge to run. He yawned exaggeratedly and feigned boredom - which did not fool Hillary. Bryce's own clothes made a far less orderly exit.

xxxxxx

Hours later, Bryce lay in bed, uncomfortably awake in the silence that hangs over the early morning hours. He knew that if he fell asleep, he would not dream of sheep herded into a pack on a hill, but of one scrawny sheep lured to stay by an impish smile and the beckoning of a long-fingered hand.

He was free to leave. As free as he was to cut off his own arm.

Bryce sighed and closed his eyes.


	12. Broken

Bryce hunched down to put himself at eye level with it as it sat on his desk. He poked at it gingerly with a pen.

"It's broken."

Hillary rolled his eyes heavenwards. "Yes, thank you. I _know_ it's broken. Can you fix it?"

Bryce settled back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other knee. "Why?"

"It isn't much use broken, is it?"

Bryce grinned. "Well, it's pretty, innit?"

"If you can't fix it, just say so; I'll find someone else." Hillary reached over to pick it up off of the desk. Bryce's brow furrowed, and he leaned forward to intercept Hillary's hand midway.

"Wait a mo, man, I didn't say I couldn't fix it. I just need to give it a bit more of a looksee. When I have time."

Hillary pulled his hand back and looked pointedly at the games that were clearly visible on the monitors behind Bryce. "Yes, I can see that you have more important things going on right now."

"You're bloody well right, mate. I might need to fly a choppa' sometime. Training, that is." Bryce waved one slender hand at the flight simulation to his right.

Hillary tapped the sad item on the desk pointedly with his forefinger. "_This_ is more important than your damn flight simulators."

Bryce leaned back in his chair. "Don't get yer pants in a twist. I have a lotta important things goin' on, and I have to prioritize." Hillary snorted and crossed his arms. "That be the way it goes, mate. Mind you..." he leaned forward again and grinned even more broadly, doing a very bad imitation of Hillary's precise accent, "if you want my time sooner, I'm amenable to extra incentive. A bribe, in plaina' terms."  
Hillary lifted an eyebrow.  
"Scones."  
The eyebrow dropped back into place.  
"What?"

"The cinnamon ones you make for Lara. Make me some, and I'll fix it."

"I'll make them _while_ you fix it."

Bryce shook his head. "Slavedriver, you are. All right, bargain." They shook hands, and Hillary headed off to the kitchen, whistling.

Bryce's brow furrowed as he poked at the mess of wire again with his pen. Now if he could only figure out what it _was_...


	13. Flight

A/N: This is a gapfiller for Tomb Raider 2 (movie). We see Hillary and Bryce drop Terry off at the Cradle of Life, and the next time we see them, they're back at the village getting made up for their own wedding.

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Under any other circumstances, seeing the back of Terry Sheridan would have made Hillary breathe a sigh of relief. Being stuck in a helicopter on a strange mountain in Africa with Bryce at the controls could not be said to be the most relaxing of circumstances, however. Hillary was having trouble breathing at all, let alone breathing a sigh of relief. He was exhausted, filthy, and desperate for a shower and a shave.

"Two hours," he yelled over the noise of the helicopter. He grabbed the back of the chair next to Bryce, hauled himself forward and into it, and strapped himself in tightly. Bryce, looking slightly lost in the pilot's seat, glanced over. "You have had two hours of flight time in an actual helicopter, and I'm trusting my life to your flying skills. I must be mad. I _am_ mad."

"Well," Bryce yelled back, "two hours, more or less..."

"More or less?" Hillary tried unsuccessfully to keep a high note of panic out of his voice. "Bryce, how much actual flying time have you had in an actual helicopter, actually?"

"Er - none, really. I've been meanin' to..."

Hillary started to fumble with his seatbelt. "That's it. I'm taking the Terry way out."

"He took the only rappel cinch..."

"I'll slide."

"And the only rope..."

"I'll jump." Hillary's hands flew off of the buckle and gripped the sides of the seat tightly as the chopper yawed stomach-churningly to the right.

"Aw, trust me, mate. I'll get you back in one piece."

"It's going to be one rather soggy and unidentifiable piece, at this rate," Hillary said, looking nervously out of the windscreen as they straightened out. His hands were now locked in place on either side of the seat as the helicopter rocketed through the blue mist. After a few minutes, the view began to change, and Hillary could not decide if it had changed for the better or for the worse. On one hand, they were starting to emerge from the unnatural fog that veiled the top of the mountain, and the sun was breaking through. On the other hand, that just meant he had a better view of the treetops that whipped by, not nearly far enough below them.

"He had a nice bum on him, though, din' he?"

Hillary turned to Bryce. "What?"

"That Terry bloke. Nice bum."

"Yes," Hillary yelled back with distaste. "Too bad it's on top of his shoulders."

"Aww, you're just bein' catty. It was a perfectly nice bum."

"Bryce, can we talk about something other than that... blackguard's rear end?" Hillary felt that his mouth was planted in a thin, hard line, and knew that he looked ridiculous like that, but he could not help it.

Bryce was grinning, now. "Fit, that one. When a bloke is all muscled like that, his bum is just so pert, ya know? Punchin' out his pants..." One skinny hand was gesturing a general shape, now. Hillary tried to burn a hole in Bryce's ear by glaring, but that only seemed to amuse the man more. "Are you tellin' me you weren't lookin? Do you have a pulse? It were just a reallllly good..."

The helicopter bumped and shuddered. The engine started to spin down. Hillary looked back out of the windscreen, and saw that Bryce had set the helicopter back down in the clearing they had departed from; two other empty choppers sat nearby.

"Yeh seemed nervous, so I thought I'd distract you from the landin'." If Bryce's grin got any wider, his head would fall off. Hillary unbuckled himself and stormed out of the helicopter, still tightlipped. He stepped out onto dry, dusty ground that crunched underfoot and paused to get his bearings.

He heard Bryce come stumbling out after him, and felt a lean hand grab his left buttock. "Hey, man - I didn't even notice his bum. Just yours." The hand squeezed. Hillary turned to face Bryce, who was looking slightly abashed.

"I'm mollified," said Hillary. "Now, how's your Swahili?"

Bryce looked confused for a moment, and then spotted the small group of stony-faced tribespeople standing at the edge of the clearing, staring levelly at the helicopter.

"Ah. I don't speak a word. You?"

"If one of them sticks a spear in me, I can tell him, 'Thank you.'"

A broad-shouldered man, bare to the waist and carrying a long spear, walked towards them. He stopped a conversational distance away, and spoke in a language neither of them understood. Hillary gave an exaggerated shrug. The broad-shouldered man jerked his head up towards the mist-shrouded mountain peak. Hillary nodded, then spread his empty hands. The tribesman looked them both over with caution, circling them slowly. He returned to his former position, apparently satisfied, and called out something to the people standing back at the edge of the clearing. The group started to talk among themselves. Bryce grabbed Hillary's arm nervously.

"I think they know we're friendly..." Hillary said quietly.

"Jus' as long as they don't think we're tasty, as well."

A small woman in flowing red robes, her hair elaborately braided, broke off from the group and ran towards them, grinning and speaking quickly. She took their arms in her hands and tugged, as if to lead them.

"Guess it's time to make new friends," Bryce said as they followed her down a dirt path, more giggling women falling in with the two of them and their guide.


	14. Extremes

"I'm bored," Bryce groused, tossing a magazine up on the desk and planting his feet on top of it with a sigh. 

"Then do something," Hillary said absently as he dusted the living room. 

"Somethin'," muttered Bryce. "That's all I get - 'somethin.'" He leaned back and closed his eyes. 

Hillary wondered, not for the first time, just what it was that Bryce wanted. 

The last week had been a blessed period of dullness following a highly not-dull chase of Lara's after the rumor of an undiscovered temple in the Peloponnese. It turned out to be a false trail, but in typical Lara-fashion, the investigation involved a great deal of running and leaping, several dicey encounters with an explorer who would not mind seeing Lara perish in an unfortunate accident, even if it required some assistance to occur, some chasing around on their parts, an unexplained pick-up late at night in a rather seedy part of London, and a lecture from Hillary about risks that they both knew she would completely disregard while he bandaged her cuts and a sprained wrist. With that done, it was time for another boring stretch of normalcy. 

Hillary considered his life to be a delicate balance of excitement and dullness, insanity and routine. Lara's life had enough excitement to fill more than one lifetime, and Hillary felt that it was important to give her a stable hearth and home to return to from her exotic adventures. She might raid tombs, solve ancient and lethal puzzles, outwit and outleap competitors who had not a shred of scruple about causing harm to her if it got them there first, and face strange creatures out of the depths of time; but when she came home, the house would be clean, tea would be served, and her clothes would be neatly laid out. He knew that he was an integral part of her stable household; his life was fundamentally a rather staid one, defined by routine, and the adventures that punctuated it were the exception to the rule of extreme normalcy. 

Bryce, on the other hand, wilted with normalcy. He had no set routine, and chafed at Hillary's adherence to his own habits. He could not do as Hillary did - straddle two extremes and consider himself comfortable on average. He seemed to go slightly bonkers over the personal risks that Lara took, not to mention the ones she casually assumed her two friends would take, when there was a job at hand. He seemed to go slightly bonkers with boredom during the peaceful interludes. Hillary felt powerless to alleviate either. 

Hillary had always considered his life balanced, but when he tried to look at it through Bryce's eyes, it unsettled him to see no balance at all. Life swung between two ends of the spectrum, and did not rest at any midpoint. He was either staid or frantic. Any given day would be dull or life-threatening. Bryce's nuttily flippant and offhand approach to life seemed, in many ways, more sensible than Hillary's own. And he did not know what to do about this. In general, the life he offered to Bryce was either too boring to entertain him or exciting enough to scare him spitless, but never simply satisfying enough for day-to-day. And in specifics, he had no idea what 'something' to offer a bored Bryce at this moment. An outing? A game? Sex over the back of the couch? 

"I'm goin' out," Bryce announced after a pronounced silence, sliding out of his chair and picking his jacket up from where it hung on the back. 

"Would you like me to take you?" 

"Nah, I can drive meself." Bryce walked out in the direction of the garage. 

Hillary sat down for a few minutes after that, biting his lip and running his fingers absently along the feather duster. 

He then went out to the sitting room to polish the silver. 

Bryce did not return until very late that night, when Hillary was already in bed and well on his way to sleep. As usual, he woke fully as soon as Bryce came in; Bryce made more noise than he typically did, though, and Hillary's guess that he was drunk was confirmed by the breath in his face as Bryce leapt gracelessly into bed, straddled Hillary, and laughed. Hillary tentatively touched his face, running one finger down the lean and unshaven cheek, and said, "You should have let me give you a ride back..." Bryce snickered. "Yeh can give me a ride now, mate." Bryce leaned in to kiss him; sure enough, he tasted of beer and stale cigarette butts. Bryce was usually rougher when drunk, and Hillary grimaced as Bryce broke the kiss to bite him on the shoulder, hard enough to break the skin. 

"Bryce..." Hillary sighed, starting to pull off the other man's shoes, which were currently tracking mud onto the coverlet. While Hillary's hands were tied up with this task, Bryce took the opportunity to suck and nip at Hillary's neck and shoulders; he'd have marks tomorrow. Hillary was not in the mood for this. He finally got the shoes off, dropped them over the side of the bed, and tried to push Bryce back. "Later," he said, doing his best to sound calming rather than petulant. Bryce sat back as the hands pushed, and leaned right back in as soon as they dropped. His nimble fingers pulled Hillary's dressing-gown open and ran down his chest and stomach, then further down. His tongue followed, licking and sucking over Hillary's torso, as his hands grasped Hillary's penis, stroking him to firmness. Hillary groaned and wound his hands through Bryce's tousled hair as he licked Hillary's navel and stroked his penis harder and faster. Then Bryce laughed, repeated Hillary's "Later," in a mockery of the butler's voice, fell onto his side, and immediately began to snore. 

Hillary put his head back with a sigh. He was now irritated and extremely horny. He stepped out of bed and felt his way to the dark bathroom, closing the door and leaning against the cool tile wall. He felt feverishly hot as he stroked himself with one hand, running the other hand through the sticky saliva that was drying on his chest, his breath hitching in his throat. He could not help the vision of Bryce's grinning face coming to him as he came over his hand, biting his lip to keep from crying out. He paused to let the shudders pass and catch his breath, then fumbled his way to a washcloth, wet it from the tap, and cleaned himself. He opened the door and walked back into the bedroom, where Bryce continued to snore on the bed. Hillary felt for any hard or sharp objects, removing Bryce's belt and keys and putting them on the bedside table. He climbed into bed next to Bryce, dizzy and confused. 

In only a few years, Bryce had become such an integral part of the household that Hillary had difficulty imagining the manor returning to the way it was before Bryce arrived. It was becoming clearer with every interlude between adventures, however, that whatever it was that Bryce needed, he did not get it here. Although his behavior irritated Hillary to no end, he recognized it as the flailing of an unsatisfied mind. And if Hillary was frustrated, it was only because Bryce was, as well. Hillary suspected that what he had to offer to Bryce was just not enough. 


	15. Worth

Bryce sat at his desk in the living room of the manor, his feet up on another chair that sat askew next to him. He had sat in the late morning, after crawling out of bed in his rumpled clothes and splashing some water on his face. He remained there as the sun slowly dipped towards the west. It was almost setting, now, and the twilight had the tinge of eternity that only autumn sunsets possessed.

Bryce tinkered with one of his bugs, as he had been doing for hours. He had taken it apart, and put it back together again. It was almost all apart, now, and he absently considered putting it back together again. It was all so much busywork for his hands while his mind ran in profitless circles.

He had woken up alone very late this morning in someone else's bed. To the old Bryce, as he now considers the man he was before he took this blasted job, that would have been ideal. It would have meant that he had experienced a good shag, and was now spared the embarrassment of introducing himself before he left. But this was no stranger's bed, and what would have transpired, had he not woken alone, would have been an awkward and annoying fishing for explanation rather than an introduction. Bryce's lips tightened. He had not spoken with Hillary this morning, and the butler had left no note, merely a polite explanation to Lara that he would be taking a trip and would be gone for a few days. Bryce needed no note to know that Hillary was upset with him. He knew the other man well enough to know what small gestures shouted upset; last night's mud-stained bedclothes still on the bed Bryce woke up in; his shoes, belt, and keys dropped carelessly on the ground next to him.

Bryce did not understand the reason for the upset. He had made so many changes to his life since he had become involved with Hillary. He had given up other men. He kept a semi-regular schedule. He only went out drinking when he was utterly at the end of his tolerance level for boredom, and always came back home to Hillary afterwards. Hell, keeping the same job for as many years as he had was a massive lifestyle change. And yet, he still was able to irk the other man, far too often.

He could leave. It had been his original plan, after all. The packet he had saved up was larger than what he usually accumulated before moving on to another job in another city. With Hillary away, there would be no need for explanations or goodbyes. Just a new home, a change of scene, new friends, new lovers. Bryce grimaced as he twisted the plastic casing in his hands far too aggressively, causing a small tab to go flying. He put his right hand flat on his knee, and started a mental count to ten.

"You know, Bryce..." a voice came from behind him. He turned to see Lara standing there, finished with her afternoon workout, sweat running down her forehead. "...I think, if I bought you some plutonium, you could make me one of the world's nuclear powers."

"You'd like that?" Bryce asked. He was never quite sure when Lara was joking.

She smiled, and took a sip out of a bottle of water she held. "I've always wanted to join the UN."

"Peacekeepers, eh?" Bryce muttered. He turned back to his bug, picked up his screwdriver, and started to methodically put it back together again. He heard Lara's footsteps beside him. She walked to the chair he was resting his legs on, tapped his foot with her bottle, and sat down when he swung his legs back onto the floor. She said nothing, merely looked at him, steadily.

"It's all to cock," he muttered. "And I don't know how yeh always know when it is."

"It's a secret feminine intuition technique called 'talking to people'," Lara replied. She paused. "And listening to what they say in return, actually. I think that's where the big secret lies."

Bryce did not ask who she had been talking to, or what she had heard. He had a rather good hunch that he knew the answers to both. "Is it always like this?" he asked, still assembling the bug with painstaking care. He tried to elaborate as she merely sat and stared. "I done more fer him than I've done fer anyone else, and he still gets..." he waved his hand, trying to convey the general absence of Hillary-ness on the premises.

"Don't put too much stock in my advice," Lara grumbled, turning the bottle in her hands. "I haven't kept a lover for more than a few months at a time." Bryce watched her slender hands move as they both sat in silence.

"What do you want?" Lara asked after a few minutes.

This was not a question Bryce had been expecting. He thought for a moment, tapping a screwdriver on his knee and looking straight at Lara's impassive face. "I want Hil'ry, I guess," he muttered.

"Well," she said with a smile, "it certainly makes it easier when you're clear on what you want." She stood, looking down at him. "If I want an orange, I go to the grocery store. If I want an ancient set of Mayan prayer beads, it's a little bit more complicated than that." She stretched, catlike, and walked up the stairs. The low murmur of a shower drifted down some minutes later.

Bryce folded his hands in his lap, and looked at the long streaks of ruddy light flung from the west-facing windows. So bluntly rational. Costs and desires. The relative value of what he paid was never an issue; the price was absolute. It was both absurdly simple and frighteningly unequivocal.

Bryce thought of the worth, to him, of all he had paid so far, and contemplated the cost of all he had still to pay. And on the other side of the equation, just one man.

He sat, shuffling equations in his head, as the sun dipped down and darkness covered the study.

Bryce was sitting in a very similar position at a very similar time of day a week later when Hillary walked in. He had a bag slung over his shoulder, and the expression he was wearing was the one expression of his that Bryce could not read. It was the one that he wore to greet guests, and Bryce considered it as much a part of his uniform as the vest, tie, or gold watch. Hillary must have put it on before walking in, because it did not change when he saw Bryce sitting at his desk. Hillary only paused a moment, looking Bryce in the eyes, before turning and walking up the stairs towards his room. Bryce sighed, looking at the transmitter in his hands while he debated whether to follow. If not, though, why had he stayed?

Bryce carefully laid out the screws and connectors that were in his mouth on the desk, in the appropriate order, and put the transmitter beside them. There was procrastination in his precision, he recognized, as he painstakingly put his tools away. He put the rest of them aside and walked up the staircase, feeling like he was crawling up it on his hands and knees.

He made as little noise as he could walking into Hillary's room, and sat down quietly on a chair in a corner. He knew Hillary had heard him. The other man had laid his bag on his bed, and was unpacking it in his mind-numbingly painstaking manner. He made no acknowledgement of Bryce's presence, and Bryce merely sat and watched. At least he hasn't told me to leave, Bryce thought. However, his silence resounded in the moderately-sized bedroom.

As Hillary came close to the end of his unpacking, Bryce took off his boots and his belt, setting them down on the floor. Hillary's back tensed, and Bryce caught a look of annoyance in profile as the butler pulled his dopp kit out of the bottom of the bag and set it on the nightstand. He had discarded the wholly unreadable expression, and Bryce was grateful for small mercies. He walked over to the far side of the bed and sat down gently, pulling his legs up and settling back with his arms behind his head. He watched as Hillary's expression moved from irate at Bryce's intrusion to bemused at the inaction that followed. Bryce closed his eyes and waved at the book that sat on the nightstand. "Read to me, would yeh?" He paused. "Please."

A few minutes later, after Hillary had put away his bag and carefully stowed his shoes, his soothing voice replaced the awkward silence, far into the night.


	16. Storyteller

Lady Croft was one of the most animated storytellers Hillary knew. When she had a serious story to tell, or a factual lecture to give, she would spit out the data with all of the gravity and poise of a tenured university professor. She could make anything compelling, from geography to history to her limited knowledge of paleontology, by her obvious interest in and enthusiasm for the subject matter. But it was the adventure tales that she truly relished, and when she would tell those, she would come alive. Her normally suave and implacable demeanor would fall away; her eyes would sparkle, her hands would move frantically to convey the actions of the narrative, and she came close to stumbling over her own tongue in her haste to get to the _next_ part.

And then...

And then...

Hillary could only listen with tight-lipped tolerance, torn between two reactions. His visceral one was horror and disapproval, knowing the one woman he cared about most in this world was so casually flinging herself into mortal danger on a regular basis. He knew, from the rare times that he had accompanied her, that she tended to downplay the hazard to herself in the retelling. The more analytical side of him knew that this was what she lived _for_, and not to risk her life would not be living, as far as she was concerned. Retelling the adventure was, for no reason he had ever been able to understand, very important to her; it was a cathartic conclusion of some type. So he bit his lip and tried to look as excited as he knew she wanted him to be. And in turn, she overlooked his poorly squelched distaste.

Bryce was a welcome addition to her spontaneous storytelling sessions. He was unequivocally thrilled by her stories. Hillary suspectsed it was because Bryce did not care about Lara as much as he did, and noted with mild horror that the man who watched with no outward sign of distress when Lara recalled a close flirt with death over a deep chasm, or the whistle of an arrow next to her ear that left a slash she interrupted the narrative to proudly show off, was the man who winced when Lara hit the point in the story when one of the gadgets he had made for her was smashed, shot, blown up, or drowned, as they tended to be on almost every outing. Lara sometimes noticed, and swatted Bryce across the back of the head, but Hillary noticed every time, and cringed.

This question of priorities came up, against Hillary's better judgement, when Bryce was fluttering around the once-again shot-up Simon with an expression of heartfelt concern and horror.

"You're in real pain, aren't you?" he asked with incredulity. "Over a robot made of old vacuum cleaner parts?"

Bryce gave him a withering look. "It's not _just_ a robot. He's me mate, he is."

The correct thing to do at that point would have been to pat Bryce reassuringly on the back and find something else to do while he fixed the android back up.

"Most people have human beings for mates, you know, rather than expired home appliances."

"Tha's stupid of 'em," Bryce said with conviction. "Yeh can trust machines."

"And not humans?"

Bryce assured himself of something having to do with Simon's condition; he set the android in some kind of grotesque seated position, patted it on what passed for the top of its head, sat in the chair next to it, and swung his feet back onto the desk. He gave Hillary a mischievous look. "Well - let's just say that the standards are higher for humans. A lot of effort, they are." Hillary sniffed. Bryce continued, "I know the bird means the world to yeh, man, but ta me, she's just another bird." He grinned. "With some _really_ good stories."

"Effort," muttered Hillary to himself, aghast, and started to walk out of the room. With one of his random spurts of extreme energy, Bryce hopped out of his chair, vaulted the desk, grabbed Hillary's face between his hands, and kissed him soundly on the lips. "Not that some of yeh ain't worth the effort. Just that most aren't."

Bryce then ran back to where Simon 'sat,' and began to fuss over him with a bag of tools. "Daddy's here..."


	17. Moth

**A/N: This is a partial resolution for the business in Extremes.**

Bryce could never understand Hillary's soft-heartedness when it came to - well, disgusting things, as far as Bryce was concerned. You cannot have a trailer sitting on an extensive set of grounds without having visitations from mice, snakes, insects of all kinds; things that Bryce felt perfectly happy about stepping on or swatting, then kicking out in disgust. But Hillary always had to pick up whatever vile thing hand crawled in - gently, between two of those long, slender fingers, to be pitched easily out of the door. It irritated Bryce to see him treat such nasty critters with much more care than he would treat a human intruder. He never asked Hillary about this discrepancy, though, as he was sure he would get some line about how the critters never asked for it.

Thoughts of this nature were running through Bryce's mind as he watched Hillary cup an errant moth that was about to land in a sticky puddle of something, and wave it on. Bryce kept his eye on it, hoping to be able to 'accidentally' squish it with his tumbler the next time it came around. He hoped to have Hillary's eye when he did, but Hillary was still preoccupied with glaring daggers at the pretty young brunette who had smiled at Bryce the last time he had visited the bar, and who appeared to be trying to walk over and talk to them. She had settled into a parody of a mambo where she would approach the table, then back off at the glower Hillary would send her way. She would most likely tire of it fairly soon, but Bryce was rather flattered that she had gone through so many iterations already. He was flattered, too, that Hillary was so irked at her for doing so. He felt highly flattered all around, he decided, and finished his drink with a flourish, banging the tumbler on the table and just barely missing the too-curious moth. Hillary's eyebrows leapt as he looked back at Bryce.

They were out on what Bryce liked to call a date, because Hillary hated that word. It really was a compromise; a matter of convenience. When either the tedium of regular life at the manor or the ludicrous excitement of one of Lara's more interesting expeditions got to be too much for Bryce, he would drag Hillary along on a barhop. The other man, in turn, had learned it was best to simply go along with it and let Bryce blow off whatever steam had built up within. Bryce complained loudly about the inconvenience of having to schedule it in the first place and curtail the duration according to Hillary's desires, but just to himself, he was more than happy to admit the positive aspects of the tradeoff. From a practical standpoint, he no longer had to worry about the logistics of getting from bar to bar, and getting home at the end; as he no longer got quite as blind drunk by the end, the hangover the next day was a little less debilitating. The impractical benefits were quite tempting, as well. When removed from the settings of the manor and all that reminded him of Lara, Hillary became quite solicitous - almost possessive - of Bryce. He was not an openly affectionate man, and Bryce found he rather enjoyed being the center of the butler's attention for such an extended period of time. It was especially fun when women tried to chat him up. But possibly the most positive aspect of the tradeoff was that when Hillary had decided Bryce was drunk enough, he would steer the other man back to the car and take him back to the manor. Hillary took care of the driving and navigation, which meant Bryce could concentrate on the more pressing matters of attempting to get the other man's shirt and trousers open, and entertain himself with the contents. Hillary usually managed to fend him off until they got back to the manor, at which point they would have about as riotous a night as was regularly seen at the manor in the absence of heavy weaponry. Bryce would sleep until late afternoon the next day, and wake up feeling significantly better than he had before he had the day before.

It wasn't exactly a proper bender, but it served its purpose. Additionally, it allowed for a certain amount of logical induction on Bryce's part. Figuring out the angle with Hillary and his leniency towards the disgusting crawly things of the world was one of them, but Bryce was investigating something more pressing tonight - whether Hillary actually called the night to a close when he felt Bryce was sufficiently tanked, or whether he did so when he was tired of waiting for his own part in the festivities to begin.

Bryce leaned his head on his hands and smiled his best winsome smile across the table at Hillary. All in the interests of science, of course.


	18. Rain

The spring rain was cold and steady. It beat a mind-numbing tattoo on the roof of Lindsay's car as she glared at the brake lights in front of her and seethed.

She hated rain. She hated traffic. She hated having errands foisted upon her by her boss at the last minute. With the combination of all three weighing on her mind, the hate expanded to become almost an entity in itself. Lindsay looked around her, and hated the Audi to her right. She hated whoever was behind her with too-bright lights. She hated the BMW in front of her, and she hated the little bald spot she could just barely see on the passenger in the back seat. She twiddled the radio, and managed to hate every type of music that came through, and hated the static between even more. She hated the slow crawl that moved her relentlessly along the M1.

The minor roads leading to her destination in Buckinghamshire were less crowded, and she made the trip at a good clip. However, the late hour and ceaseless pounding of the rain meant that her mood had not improved perceptibly by the time she reached her destination. The long driveway grated on her nerves, and the shelterless stretch between the cul-de-sac where she stopped and the entrance to the manor mocked her. She sighed and looked at her fashionable and highly un-waterproof pumps with regret. She picked up the bag in the passenger's seat, took a deep breath, and awkwardly sprinted the distance from the car to the door. Her hair was nevertheless stuck wetly to the sides of her face when she made it to the doorsill's overhang, and was dripping onto her blouse. The door opened as soon as she reached it, as if someone had been watching.

"Good evening; please come in." The butler who had opened the door gestured her inside.

Lindsay held out the bag. "I came to deliver this; Dr. Hamilton said you knew I was coming..."

"Yes..." the butler smiled and took the bag, then put his hand on her back and urged her forward. "Have some tea; you look soaked."

The word 'tea' was a magic incantation that instantly won her cooperation. Lindsay pushed her wet hair back and walked from the entryway to the living room, led by the genial butler. He waved her into a beige armchair as he continued through another door.

The chair was soft, almost too soft, and after the hell of a day she had just been through, she felt an urge to relax bonelessly in it. But ogling the rest of the room took too much of her attention. It was spacious, rearing up two floors to a skylight that let off a low drone from the pounding of raindrops. A large staircase at the far end led to a balcony that encircled the room and led off to unknown bits of second story. Two other chairs and one loveseat, all mates to the chair she sat in, were arranged around the room. A small table of some warm, reddish wood sat to her left, resting on elegantly carved legs, and a larger companion stood in the middle of the room. A rich Oriental rug lay on the stone floor, its reds and golds the main source of color. At the opposite end of the room from the staircase, a small computer area made an odd contrast to the old-money fashion that dominated the rest of the room.

The butler came back, having exchanged the black bag she had brought for a silver tray with a pot of tea and a cup. He set the tray down next to her, and she gratefully picked it up and took a sip of what turned out to be strong chai, slightly sweet. For the first time in several hours, she smiled.

Lara sat in Bryce's study, perched on the edge of a chair that was dominated by heaps of wiring. She started to open the bag, then looked over her shoulder at Bryce. He was staring unabashedly at the bag, his breath loud in her ear.

"Do you mind?" she asked, trying to aim a shrug at his chin.

"I'm curious. Whot's in that, then?"

Lara stared at him levelly, until he took the hint and leaned back against his desk, his cheek twitching with excitement. Lara turned back to the bag and opened it, gently lifting out a small, dirty yellow stone. It fit in the palm of her hand, and glinted dully in the light.

"Is _that_ all?" Bryce looked disappointed.

"All? This was quite a find!" Bryce leaned in again as she held it up. "Dominican amber, with an insect inclusion." She pointed to the small multi-legged creature frozen in the chunk's heart.

"Whot kind of insect?"

"Good question. I hope Diane was able to find out something about it. I told her 'borrowing' does not include 'grinding up!'" Lara held the piece to the light, and it glowed bright yellow. The insect was a perfectly formed silhouette; no air bubbles marred the stone.

"She coulda come and talked to you herself," Bryce groused, glancing out into the living room. Hillary had started a conversation with the irate-looking woman who had brought the bag; she appeared to have relaxed significantly since he had brought her in. "Whot's she doin' out there?"

Lara turned her head and grinned. "Jealous, Bryce?" He gave her a wounded look.

"Right-o; I'll go greet the guest and put you out of your misery." She slipped the stone gently back into the bag, swept the clutter off of a corner of the desk (to Bryce's great dismay), set the bag there, and walked out to the living room. Bryce sighed and started to pick up the bits and bobs that Lara had swept onto the floor. Hillary walked in while he was still engrossed in this task, set a cup of tea precariously on a heap of papers next to one of the monitors, and started to root through the bag. Bryce rescued the cup as it started to slide off, and took a sip.

"Ain't much to look at," he commented as Hillary finally found the small stone.

Hillary appeared to agree; he held the stone to the light, turning it this way and that, and shrugged. "Well, Lara went to a fair amount of trouble to get it."

"Eh, the old refrain... Lara wants it, that's good enough for me..." Bryce singsonged.

"It got you hired," Hillary muttered, not quite quietly enough.

Bryce's retort was lost, however, as Lara swept in and snatched the stone out of Hillary's hands. "Keep your fingers _off_ of my things!" she groused. She waved in the general direction of the living room with the hand that held the stone. "Be a dear and show Lindsay out, will you?"

She had a distracted look in her eyes, and hared out of the room before Hillary's "Yes, ma'am," was fully out of his mouth.

Lindsay was in a far better mood than she had been when she arrived. She was warm, dry, full of very good tea, and had enjoyed a stimulating conversation with Lara. The aristocrat had appeared to be a dilettante initially, but her knowledge of virology was, for a layperson, impressive. The good tea and pleasing conversation had mellowed Lindsay enough for her to not be offended by the butler's not-so-subtle hint of the danger of waiting until it was much later to drive home in the rain. He walked her out to her car with an umbrella, and she left the manor in reasonably good spirits.

Those spirits lasted all of about the two minutes it took for her to get rearended. She pulled to the side of the road and sighed, looking back at the single remaining headlight of the car that had whacked her. Whacked her none too gently; she rubbed the back of her now-sore neck. And she had merely been driving at a fairly steady speed! She saw a black silhouette emerge from the other vehicle, and sat back, waiting. _She_ would not get wet because of someone else's inattention. She rolled down her window as the figure approached her door.

It did not pause. Once her window was open, it reached in and put a very meaty hand around her throat, revealing itself as a broad-shouldered man in dark clothing. His collar was turned up, and a black stocking cap was pulled low over his face. The other hand thrust a wicked-looking serrated knife in through the window, and put the point to her nose.

"The rock. Now," the man growled in a voice that grated of too many cigarettes and too much liquor over the course of his lifetime. The accent bore badly hidden hints of Liverpool.

Lindsay's brain ceased to work properly as soon as her throat was grabbed, and the knife did not help matters. Incoherent sounds came out of her throat.

The man leaned in closer. His breath hinted at a mouth that did not receive regular visitations from a toothbrush. "Don't screw with me, bitch."

Her voice came back, slightly. It was very squeaky, and shuddered a great deal. "I left it... back..." she choked.

"At the manor?" he ground. She nodded. The man withdrew his hand and his knife with a muffled curse. "Knew we shouldn't've waited," he grumbled. He spoke more loudly to her. "Too bad you backed into a light pole and busted yer light, innit?" He turned and strode back to the car, which pulled away and made a U-turn with a loud screeching of tires.

Lindsay's hand trembled as she rolled the window closed. She sat there, breathing heavily, waiting for the hammering of her heart to settle to a point where she could attempt to drive.

It had, indeed, been a bitch of a day.


	19. Rain, pt 2

Bryce was feeling rather petulant. He knew it was juvenile, and didn't care; he simply stalked out to his trailer, pretending not to see the invitation in Hillary's raised eyebrows. He was soaked when he arrived, and sat in front of his computers, toweling his hair off. He had toyed with the thought of getting some work done earlier in the evening, and had amended that to playing games when he left the manor, but once in the trailer, the steady drumming of rain and the relentless darkness outside made his small bed very tempting. He tossed the towel over the other chair, pulled off his shoes and trousers, and walked to the rear of the trailer. He had begun to sleep badly alone perhaps half a year ago, and was surprised to find himself drifting off to the sound of the steady hammer of rain on the metal roof as soon as he flopped in the bed in his T-shirt and boxers. He was fully asleep in short order. 

He had no way of knowing what time it was when he woke up; it was still dark, but the rain had stopped pounding on the roof of his trailer. A large, meaty hand covered his mouth, and something cold was at his temple. He blinked, trying to clear his sleep-blurred vision, as a face shadowed by a cap and a turned-up collar leaned down. "Don't say a word," a hoarse, grating voice said.

Bryce opened his mouth and bit one chunky finger. The hand jerked back as the voice cursed, and the cold thing pushed harder at his temple. He rolled his head away from it.

"One more trick like that, boy, and I'll blow yer brains out," the voice grated.

Bryce shrugged. "I'm guessin' your boss didn't want ya to kill me without you gettin'... whatever you're lookin' for." He was astonished how nonchalant he was about the situation. Working for Lara for as long as he had changes a bloke, he thought ruefully. He had a fair idea what kind of game this was, which in turn gave him a decent idea about what he could get away with.

Another darkly-dressed, capped figure, shorter than Grating Voice but more broad-shouldered, entered the room. As Grating Voice stepped back, his gun still trained on Bryce, the shorter one pushed Bryce on his side and strapped his hands tightly together behind his back with gaffer tape. Grating Voice snapped a piece off with his free hand and slapped it over Bryce's mouth. He used that hand to yank him out of bed and half-lead, half-drag him out of the trailer.

He was dropped unceremoniously off to the side with his back to the trailer, next to Hillary. His hands were also behind his back, although he did not have tape over his mouth. He raised one eyebrow at Bryce, who shrugged.

They both turned towards the manor as two more heavies pulled a stubborn-looking Lara out of the house, yet another two walking behind with guns at the ready. Grating Voice walked over and started to talk to her, leaving Broad Shoulders to watch Hillary and Bryce. Whatever Grating Voice had to say, it had turned into a conversation with Lara, but they were far enough away that all Bryce could hear was that the conversation was not amicable, which was hardly a shock. Hillary apparently could not hear, either; he turned to Bryce and used his teeth to rip the tape off of Bryce's mouth. Broad Shoulders shifted, but did not interfere. Hillary spit the tape off to the side, after a few false starts of one of the sticky ends clinging to his lips.

"Whot are they on about?" Bryce muttered.

"I don't know," Hillary replied, quietly. "They came in through the window. They're very quick, you have to give them that."

Bryce did not think he had to give them anything, actually. He looked up at Broad Shoulders. "I have an idea," he said, more loudly. "I'll distract this one with me sexy legs, and you can sneak up behind him and hit him with your purse." A dull gleam of off-white showed as Broad Shoulders grinned. Hillary looked heavenward.

They both looked back to the manor as Lara's voice grew louder. She was walking towards them, prodded by Grating Voice and his four lackeys. "...told you, he is mistaken. It's terribly rude to break and enter on false pretenses." She looked icy, and somehow maintained a quiet dignity in spite of being in pajamas and having her hands taped behind her.

Grating Voice was not maintaining any kind of composure. What little could be glimpsed of his meaty face between the cap and upturned collar appeared irate, and his voice matched. "Look, I'm only going to ask this one more time. Where is it?" Lara looked upwards, affecting boredom.

A seventh figure, this one significantly smaller and slenderer than the others, jogged out from the manor. This figure, while dressed in black like the others, wore no cap; it was female, with a dark crewcut. "It was just sittin' on the bedside table," she piped, handing the black bag Bryce had seen earlier over to Grating Voice. Grating Voice opened it up and pulled out Lara's chunk of amber.

"That's _mine_," Lara growled, menace in her voice. Bryce had not been employed at the manor for this long to not note that Lara was rather possessive of the fruits of her labor; violently so, at times.

Grating Voice tossed it in his palm a few times. "Not big enough," he muttered, tossing it carelessly on the ground. Lara watched it fall, murder in her eyes. Grating Voice rooted through the bag more, grunted, shook it, and rooted through it again. The slight sound of cloth tearing was followed by him triumphantly pulling out a small black string-cinch bag, dark enough to be velvet. He opened it, and shook out a tennis-ball-sized chunky something that looked orangish-black in the dim moonlight. He tossed it from hand to hand, then chucked it back into the bag.

Lara had been watching this display with surprise replacing the anger on her face. Grating Voice slung the bag over his shoulder, then stepped closer to Lara. "That's what you get for wastin' our time, bitch," he hissed, slapping her across the face hard enough to send her stumbling onto her back. Bryce winced - partly because the slap sounded like it had, indeed, hurt rather a lot, and partly because he just _knew_ that Hillary was about to do something stupid. He was not disappointed. Hillary ate the distance between himself and Grating Voice in two strides, and delivered a substantial kick to the man's groin. Grating Voice folded with a noise reminiscent of a squeeze dog toy that had been chewed too often. Crewcut Girl pulled out a gun and whacked Hillary across the forehead with it, practically leaping off of her tiptoes to reach that high. Hillary fell on top of Lara, knocking her to the ground as she was picking herself back up.

This all took place before Broad Shoulders could do much more than yell, "Hey!" Realizing that his moment to do anything useful had just passed, he settled for turning to Bryce and asking, "You going to try anything?" menacingly. Bryce shrugged. He was a sensible man. This seemed to frustrate Broad Shoulders, because he jerked towards Bryce abruptly in a feint as Grating Voice regained his composure enough to round up the small collection of dark-clad toughs. They all jogged in broken step out of the manor; the sound of an engine starting and tires squealing drifted over the broad expanse of lawn. Lara said a naughty word that Bryce did not think she knew (although she might have learned it from him, he reflected) as she kicked Hillary off of her. She rolled to her feet and dashed back into the manor, probably looking for something sharp to use on the gaffer tape that was holding her hands behind her. And on nothing else, Bryce hoped. He walked over to where Hillary was still trying to shake sense back into himself. "Nice move, what?" Bryce asked with a sigh.

A purplish bruise was visible on Lara's left cheek as she paced in the living room as if she were walking on the heads of the intruders, tossing her own chunk of amber from hand to hand. Bryce sucked on the end of a pen and watched her, somewhat nervously. Of all of the moods she could be in, the worst were when a friend had not been honest with her, or when she felt she had done something careless, and both were in play at the moment. "I should have checked," she seethed. "I knew it was too heavy! I didn't think."

Hillary sat on the couch, holding a handkerchief to his head and wincing as her stomping footfalls shook the floor. "You had no reason to suspect. Dr. Hamilton knew you trusted her."

"And you!" Lara whirled and pointed a finger at him. "If you _ever _do something like that again..."

Bryce pulled the pen out of his mouth. "Oi," he interrupted, "he was just scoutin'. Now we know the enemy has a weak spot in their groins."

Lara whirled again. Bryce was becoming dizzy from just watching her. "Don't you try to defuse this! I'm upset!" She returned to her pacing. "Diane, may she rot in Hades, is at a meeting in San Francisco. That's why her lackey delivered the bag. Bryce, did the cameras get her plate? I want an address."

Bryce tapped the keyboard to his left with his pen. The image was dark and blurry from the rain, but the plate was visible. "Right, just a mo."

Lara nodded at Hillary. "Get some skulking clothes on. We're going for a trip." She turned to Bryce. "You're holding the fort." She started to scamper up the stairs. "Well? Move!" she called over her shoulder. Hillary and Bryce shared a resigned look, then turned to their assigned tasks.

Bryce glowered at the computer screen. It grated on him, sometimes, the way Lara could peremptorily yank Hillary away for - well, anything, at any time. But she had him before Bryce, and Bryce just knew that it would be the same if Hillary were not officially in her employ; he was devoted to her. Bryce banged the keys with unnecessary force, leaning back once he had the address and saying nothing. He'd be buggered if he would go to the effort of running the address upstairs to Lara. She could haul her precious little bum down and get it herself.


	20. Rain, pt 3

Lindsay awoke with a start. The ice-pack that she had put below her neck before bed had leaked, and she was immediately aware of an icy-cold squelchy sensation in her hair and down the back of her nightshirt. She sighed a murmured half-asleep sigh, opened her eyes, and woke up fully when she saw what had awoken her standing next to her bed. Foreshortening and startlement would, no doubt, make the gun appear bigger than it was; she certainly hoped so, as it appeared to be as big as her head. She squeaked and scrabbled backwards, clonking her head against the headboard and sending a harsh twinge through her sore neck. She rubbed it and stared.

The gun moved slightly to the side, remaining trained on her, and revealed both a more reasonable perspective for it and a good look at the person holding it. The dim lighting did odd things to the woman's face, and she was dressed all in black, from high-necked shirt to gloves to boots, but it was unmistakably the same Lara Croft to whom she had delivered the bag earlier in the evening. Her butler stood behind her, likewise dressed in black, but with a respectful stance and blank expression that would have matched a suit and a manor better than skulk-clothes and the fresh red gash on his forehead.

"What's your game?" Lara snapped. "Talk. Now."

Lindsay sighed and rubbed her forehead with one hand. She was trying to like England, truly she was. The little Soho apartment she had rented was decent, and the neighborhood was quite fun. She had to admit that the accents delighted her, and her PI's new lab was well-appointed. Hell, she finally had her own desk. But between the warm beer and soggy pizza, the way people here always misspelled her name and narrowed their eyes as they tried to pull meaning from her elongated vowels - well, it could drive one to think that having aristocrats break into one's room at night was just another little quirk that made England different from the States.

Lara reached forward and grabbed the collar of her nightgown, wrenching her up and forwards into a seated position with a surprisingly strong arm. "Talk!" she barked.

"About what?" Lindsay asked, frustration saturating her voice. "Weather? Sports? Please don't make me talk about soccer; I hate soccer..."

"About the delivery you made tonight," Lara grated.

Something about the movement of her face made Lindsay look closer, and she saw that what she had initially thought an oddity of the lighting was actually a sizeable and colorful bruise on Lara's cheek. She frowned. "Does this have something to do with the idiots who rearended me on the way back and wanted to know where the bag was?"

Lara glanced back over her shoulder. The butler shrugged. With a click and a soft whoosh, the gun disappeared. "What do you know about what was in it?"

"Nothing," Lindsay sighed. "Just one of those little errands. Could you run this down to that place? There's a dear. I didn't even think about it." She looked up with trepidation. "It was drugs, wasn't it." Damn it, that would just take the cake. She would have to pack up all of her goddam crap again and move back to the States, find another job there, start over...

"No." Lara clasped her hands behind her back and started to pace. "Didn't tell you anything? Nothing at all?"

"Just that it was a personal... thing of some sort. She was pretty offhand about it all." She had worked for Diane for years, after all, and they had developed a very friendly and casual trust. One that might not outlast the coming week, at this rate.

Lara nodded and crossed her arms, a 'Processing - Please Wait' look on her face. She tapped one finger against the inside of her elbow, then, seeming to reach some kind of decision, smiled at Lindsay. "Right. Well, cheerio!" She swung out of the window, and the drainpipe clanked as she presumably shimmied her way down it.

The butler looked out of the window, coughed, and turned back to Lindsay. "Mind if I use the door?"

"Oh, knock yourself out," she growled, flopping back onto her bed once he did so, thinking about what she would have to do in a moment. Lock the door behind him. Empty the ice bag. Change the sodden sheets. It was definitely time for one of those sick days she had been saving up.

Hillary caught up with Lara halfway down the block. "You're getting soft," she muttered.

"There's no need to shimmy down a drainpipe when you have a perfectly serviceable door at hand," he whispered back.

"It keeps you in shape," she shot back, poking at his stomach. "Why are we whispering?"

They both looked around. While it was hardly a street party, Soho was more than busy enough to cover up a casual conversation. "Habit, I suppose," Hillary replied with a faint smile. It disappeared as they walked to the car, parked many blocks away in an alley. "She seemed to be telling the truth."

"Awakened like that, at that time of night?" Lara snorted. "She'd have to have nerves of steel to put on an act. I think she was telling the truth, as well. Which means we are headed to California. I am damned if I am going to _wait_ for Diane to get back."

Hillary raised an eyebrow as they climbed into the car. "We?"

Lara nodded. "It will be a lot of hobnobbing and socializing, and you're so _good_ at that." She smiled winsomely, tilted the seat back, kicked off her boots, and crossed her feet on the dash with a sigh of contentment as Hillary drove back to the manor. The smile slowly faded as Lara ruminated, trying to make a full meal out of too little data. She hated having her house invaded, her friends threatened, her belongings ransacked. But she hated being used even more.

She had no problem with her life being disrupted, as long as _she_ did the disrupting. But, as Diane had seen fit to do the job this time around – well, Lara was quite ready to return the favor.


	21. Rain, pt 4

Lara scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand as she climbed the stairway. She was horribly jetlagged, and her brain felt stuffed with wool. Even one day to acclimate herself would have been a massive improvement, as Hillary had tactfully advised, but she was determined to waste no time. Diane would be out at one of the many dinner parties that were given at any convention; Lara wanted to take a look at her belongings before confronting her. A betrayal of friendship it might be, but Lara considered that Diane had broken it already.

The corridor was empty; the conventioneers had pretty much taken over the floor. Lara stopped outside of Diane's room and pressed her ear to the door. Not a sound came through. She pulled out the latest marvel of engineering that Bryce had made for her; it was the size and shape of a regular hotel key card, but Bryce had assured her it would function as a master key. She slipped it into the door lock; three LEDs on the top blipped, and the LED of the door lock switched to green. Lara slipped it back out and quietly opened the door, once again pleased that she had hired the man. He had an attitude, but he certainly had the skills to justify it.

Once inside, she paused for a moment. She had intended to search the room methodically, but the figure lying face-down beside the bed demanded immediate attention. She stooped down and gently, very gently, lifted the head with the toe of her boot. She moved it just enough to see half of the face, which, although it was covered in sticky, drying blood and stared vacantly and inhumanly, was recognizable as Diane's. Lara sighed and gently let the head settle back onto the carpet. She slipped her phone out of her pocket and dialed left-handed as she carefully poked through the room with her gloved right hand.

"Yes, it's me," she said, when Hillary answered. "It looks like Diane did not avoid whatever it was she was trying to avoid when she tried to plant that amber on me."

"Pardon?"

"She's dead," Lara said, flatly.

"Ah." The butler sounded tentative, and it struck Lara as odd for a moment. Then she realized why.

"_I_ didn't kill her. And I'm sorry she's dead." The drawers were empty. Diane's suitcase was partially unpacked on the bed. Lara started to poke through the laptop case. It might have been informative to have poked through the laptop, had it not been smashed. The hard drive had been dropped on the floor and pointedly stomped upon.

"This will be a short trip, then."

"We'll have to see about that. Give Bryce a ring, would you, and tell him to call the hotel and report a disturbance in room 1268. After twenty minutes. And tell him to make it untraceable, there's a dear." Hillary coolly said he would, and Lara hung up, now using both hands to search the bag. She pulled out the folder for the meeting, and flipped through fliers for talks and posters, lists of events, and vendor announcements. Finding nothing of interest, she turned it upside down and fluttered the pages. A handwritten note fell out.

Lara packed the folder back in the bag, and picked up the note. In a square, precise hand, it said, "It is marred. I will stop by for an explanation at 8pm in your room. Make it a good one." It was unsigned. Lara folded it, stuck it in her pocket, and pushed the door open gently. Seeing nobody in the hall, she tiptoed out and hurried to the stairwell, hurrying down to the sixth floor. She used her normal hotel-assigned key to open the door to her room.

Hillary sat on one of the beds, holding his phone and giving the staccato half-phrases of someone being frequently interrupted by the person on the other end of the line. Lara sat down on the other bed and took off her boots with relief. She flung her hand backwards as she started to pull off her socks, and Hillary put the phone in it without preamble. She interrupted Bryce's interruption. "Bryce, look up whoever has flown to San Francisco from Heathrow in the last two days."

"Oi, yeah, that won't be many, will it? Just a list as long as me arm..."

"Check it against who are checked into the convention hotels, and let me know if any names jump out, there's a dear. Thanks!" She handed the phone back and slipped off her clothes, then slipped under the blankets with a contented sigh.

Hillary concluded the conversation somewhat irately. "Do you really think it will be _that_ easy?" he asked as he snapped the phone shut and put it on the bedside table.

"He or she has no reason to think anyone would be following. For all he or she knows, it's just between the two of them. We would not have to be all _that_ lucky." She closed her eyes. "I just need to catch up on a little sleep. Wake me if he calls."

It felt like hardly an hour had passed when Lara woke, and she confirmed that with a glance at the clock. Just a little after midnight, which would be just about when she would wake normally, on her own clock. Hillary had fallen asleep on the other bed, leaving a clean set of skulking clothes folded next to her boots. She dressed quietly and slipped out, missing the feeling of the guns on her hips. It would be ludicrous to try to take them through US airport security, and there seemed to be no need to re-arm here, but still - she felt almost naked without them.

She made her way down to the lobby, which was just busy enough to offer her some sound cover. She sat in an armchair and called Bryce.

He picked up after far too many rings. "Lara, it's bloody early."

"Early to bed and early to rise, Bryce. What have you found out?"

"I found out I don't like gettin' woken up this early," he grumbled. The sound of a yawn, some sighs, and rustling paper came over the line. "Righ'. Well, there's one bloke who's standin' out. Reginald Westblake." He said the name as if it were a contagious rash. "Rich bugger. Collects gems and shows them off to people at public viewings. Loans some of them to museums. He flew out three days ago, and his flight back is," more paper shuffled, "ten peee-emmm. Your time."

"Where's he staying?" Lara asked, glancing covertly about for any sign of someone hovering closely enough to hear. She had her hand over her mouth to discourage lip-reading.

"Same hotel. Two rooms - fifteen twenty and twenty-two. How's that key workin'?"

"Marvelous. Thanks, Bryce. You earn your keep."

"Damn straight I bloody well fecking..." Lara closed the phone on that rant, and stood. Fifteen twenty. She _could_ use Bryce's master key again, but these rooms had balconies.

Lara walked quietly through the room, pausing while Hillary stirred restlessly in his sleep, then sliding the balcony door open when he went back to breathing quietly. She slid it shut again, tucked the crowbar that she had picked up into the back of her shorts, then walked to the edge of the balcony and stood on the railing. "Don't jump!" some drunken wag yelled from below, followed by the giggles of his companions fading as they staggered down the block.

Lara smiled, and then did indeed jump - up, slightly out, catching the base of the railing on the balcony above and pulling herself up onto it. She made her way up to the fifteenth floor, then over to room twenty-two. She peeked in through a gap in the curtains, and saw two big, broad-shouldered men, in jeans and bare to the waist, watching an action movie and drinking. She could just hear their raucous commentary though the thick glass. She quickly trotted over and leapt to the next balcony, peering in at room fifteen twenty. It had just one bed, much larger than the doubles that were in the rooms she and his henchmen had; a man lay sprawled over the bed in just a pair of silk boxers. He had the heavy, soft air of youthful muscle turning to middle-aged fat. He watched whatever was on the television with a dull look in his eyes.

Lara gently wedged the crowbar into the balcony door and popped it open. She strode into the room as soon as the door thunked open, holding the crowbar at her side. "Reggie!" she said, with faux heartiness.

The man's head jerked over, and his eyes widened with surprise. "The hell...?" he said, scrabbling backwards on the bed.

"Just hold still, Reggie," Lara said, calmly but firmly. "I just came by to have a little talk. A little friendly talk."

"Friendly," he snarled, sitting up.

"Yes. I just would like to know a few things, and you seem to be in a position to answer." Lara kept her eyes firmly on Reginald, but scanned the rest of the room with her peripheral vision. No movements caught her attention.

"Yes, what about that. I want to know just _what_ you wanted with _my_ amber," Reginald said, his lofty attitude somewhat ruined by his nervousness.

"Misconception number one," Lara said, tapping her palm with the crowbar. "I did not take it. It was in the bag, true, but Diane planted it there. If your _men_," she could not help snarling slightly, "had simply _asked_, we would have figured that out in a much more genteel fashion. I so hate messiness, don't you?"

"Planted it there?" Reginald seemed genuinely bewildered.

"Yes. What is it? Why did you want it? Why did you kill Diane?"

Reginald looked at Lara for a long moment, then seemed to relax. He sat upright on the bed, facing Lara. "Well. I seem to have made some mistakes." He spread his hands. "The amber belonged to me. It is the most beautiful specimens I have ever come across. As big as a man's fist, clear as glass, with one whole insect inclusion." Lara nodded. "Doctor Hamilton contacted me about borrowing it. I lent it to her - with a few conditions, of course. One of which was that it remain intact. When she hedged about returning it, I suspected something. She told me, on her way to the conference, that her technician had nicked it, which is when I sent my men to pick it up. They did. Terribly sorry if they disturbed you, but I think my actions are understandable, don't you?" Reginald sighed and shook his head. "She _did_ damage it. A very fine, neat hole, but you can see it under a microscope."

"No, actually, I think they are rude, not understandable." Lara had gently tapped her palm with the crowbar throughout the speech. "And I do not know why Diane is dead, either."

"That might have nothing to do with me." Reginald gave her a twisted grin.

"And it might." Lara strode forward, then suddenly leapt and hit Reginald's hand, hard, as he pulled a gun off of the bedside table and tried to point it at her. It went flying, and he changed tactics and tackled Lara with a bestial roar. Lara struggled in his crushing embrace; only the arm holding the crowbar was free, and she hit his head, hard, intending to knock him unconscious.

In her startlement, she hit harder than she intended. She heard a noise like a watermelon dropped from a height, and Reginald went quite still.

Lara struggled out from under him. She backed up, sighing. What an end to all of this. Reginald's head was crushed, and he lay on the ground, just like Diane had. Poetic justice, Lara wondered?

Or just plain, stupid, bloody, ridiculous chance?


	22. Rain, pt 5

As far as Lara was concerned, the matter was just about as resolved as it would be. She knew why Diane had hidden the amber in her bag - although she wished to the high heavens that her friend had confided in her, trusted her to help. Diane might not have been killed, if she had. But she did, and Reginald had ordered her killed out of some aristocratic hissy fit - and he himself was now dead. Lara had no real connection to him that the American police would know, and had, as always, worn gloves so as to leave no prints, so she had no need to fear involvement in the investigation over his death. She waited out the week of hotel reservation that remained. Hillary watched her like a hawk, ignoring her unsubtle hints to shove off, and so she played tourist with him tagging along. She saw an extravagent array of hanging art at the MOMA and body art on the streets; she ate in Chinatown and sampled the chocolate at Ghiaradelli Square, then headed to the marinas at night to watch the ships. She hiked the East Bay trails, and generally enjoyed the hell out of herself until she headed home. 

Her intent had been to pay Diane's technician a visit on her return, to see if she might find out what had been so bloody important about the amber; it seemed to be the only loose end of any importance remaining. But Bryce had relayed a message from her two days before they left San Francisco, asking Lara to come to the laboratory at her earliest convenience.

Lara therefore hopped on her Norton the morning after her arrival and sped out to Cambridge. It was a fine, warm day, and Lara had to laugh inside her helmet as the miles sped by. All too quickly, she arrived at the university. She found a place to park her bike, then made her way to the research building. Lindsay was busy at her bench, so Lara signaled her presence, then retreated to the break room to wait.

Lindsay came running in shortly afterwards, looking as excited as a boy with a new toy firetruck on Christmas morning. "Miz.. er.. Lady Croft! Thank you for stopping by. I just thought this might inteterest you. And," she added, with a bit of a smirk mixed into her smile, "thank you for coming up the stairs, this time."

"Lara, please," Lara replied, shaking Lindsay's outstretched hand. "Yes, Diane told me that she would tell me more about why she wanted my amber later - but later never came around, for her."

"Yes." Lindsay's mood darkened immediately. Lara sighed, then reached out and squeezed Lindsay's shoulder gently.

The girl shook herself slightly. "Yes. Well, even if she wasn't around to see the fruits of her work - well, she knew it was coming; she must have." Lindsay turned, leading Lara to an elevator that required a flick of the technician's keycard to open. They rode it up to the top floor as Lindsay talked. "We have been working on avian cloning. We actually have it working fairly well. That was only a tool, however, for Doctor Hamilton." Lindsay crossed her arms and drummed her fingers nervously on the insides of her elbows. "She wanted to clone... something different. That's what she needed the amber for. She wanted an inclusion of a mosquito that had just had a blood meal." Lara started to have an idea of where this was going. She wondered if she should check _her_ amber chunk for a microscopic tunnel leading into the insect.

The elevator opened, and Lindsay lead them to a keycard-opened preparation room where they left their street clothes in lockers, showered, dressed in scrubs, and put on hair nets, masks, and gloves. They proceeded to one of many featureless doors set beyond the preparation room, and Lara sucked in a breath at what was caged within. It was birdlike, with a broad wingspan, black feathers shading through brown to white at the wingtips, and a black collar over an off-white body. But its beak was reptilian, with horny tooth-like projections, and its legs were more like an iguana's than like a raptor's talons.

"There were a few eggs in the incubator, and this one hatched," Linsdsay said, quiety. "I could have sent you pictures, but I thought you would want to see it in person."

"Yes, indeed!" Lara breathed, walking slightly closer to the cage. The bird-like creature cocked its head at her, spreading its wings and beating them slightly in what looked like a territorial display.

"_Archaeopteryx_, we think," Lindsay said, with some pride. "It will be interesting to look at its skeleton, when it's had its natural lifespan. We hope we can get another one, before then, and get them to reproduce!" Her voice was eager, and her eyes were shining; Lara looked from the bird to the enthusiastic woman and back again. Well, if Diane had to die in an untimely fashion, at least she left someone behind to carry on with her work, someone with the irrepressible enthusiasm that the business demanded.

The spring sun was bright and warm. It beat steadily on the roof of Lindsay's car as she glared at the brake lights in front of her.

She hated traffic. No matter how lovely the weather was, she would never grow to like the damn traffic. Worse yet, this was an errand of her own choosing, so she could not seethe at anyone for sending her on it. She honked at a BMW that tried to cut into her lane, and crawled forwards past it. She twiddled the radio, managed to find a station playing music that was not horrific, and dangled her arm out of the window as she crawled along the M1.

The minor roads leading to her destination in Buckinghamshire were less crowded, and she made the trip at a good clip. Her mood improved as she drove along the green countryside. Even if it _was_ odd to drive on what she still intuitively felt was the wrong side of the road, she could not ask for more pleasing scenery in which to do it. The long driveway leading to Croft Manor was bordered by immaculate grounds that she had not been able to see on the dark night she had first arrived, and she sucked in a breath of fresh grass as she pulled into the cul-de-sac. She retrieved her bag from the passengers's seat and walked up to the impressive door. It opened as soon as she reached it, as if someone had been watching.

"Good evening; please come in." Hillary smiled genially at her. She smiled wanly back. The accoutrement of aristocracy was something she hoped she would never be comfortable with. She accepted a cup of tea gratefully, however, as she waited in the soft beige armchair; it had been over a year since she had sat in that same armchair on a rainier and darker evening, but the room looked as quiet, lofty, and immaculate as it had before.

Lara arrived shortly afterwards, and Lindsay rose, setting the tea aside and picking up her bag. "Miz... Lara." She fished in her bag and pulled out a sheaf of paper. "I just thought - you might want a copy of this." She handed it over, and Lara skimmed the title, then looked up.

"Ah, yes, I heard it died rather quickly," she said. "Terribly sorry."

Lindsay waved dismissively. "Oh, the fact that it was born at all blew our minds! After all, we only had DNA to go on - and we had to use different samples to cover for the gaps of degredation that each one had. No cytoplasm, no mitochondria - we had to take all of that from current birds. It would probably be easier to mate a human with a drumstick!" Lindsay laughed nervously as Lara raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, anyway," she continued, hurriedly, "we are still studying all of the data we have from the weeks it was alive." Massive amounts of data! The papers would not stop flowing... well, ever, perhaps! "We're putting Doctor Hamilton's name on these initial papers," Lindsay added. "It _was_ her work, even if her methods weren't exactly..." Lindsay trailed off, shrugging. Outright theft, in some ways. Not that she counldn't understand the drive.

Lara smiled gently. "Well, it's done. If you have a few moments, sit down; I'd love to go over these with you."

At a party of postdoctoral fellows, someone's wife had mentioned that the way to a scientist's heart was the phrase, 'Tell me about your research.' Lindsay knew that it was true, but was never able to resist it, nonetheless. She sat with Lara on the loveseat and soon found herself jabbering excitedly, pulling more papers out of her bag.

"Whot the hell are they up to?" Bryce muttered, sliding a new drive into his game computer.

"Talking," Hillary said, rescuing Bryce's teacup as it started to slide off of the stack of electronics he had absently set it on. "If you'd like to know what about, feel free to join them."

"Are you daft?" Bryce asked, closing the case and beginning to hook the computer back up. "That science crap is as borin' as all freaking hell. I'll go talk with them if I can't get to sleep later, how's that? Now," he said, smiling and tapping the case in his hands, "_this_ is more my speed. Dija know..."

As he started to ramble on about the computer in his hands, Hillary let the man's voice fade to a buzz as he rubbed his forehead with two fingers. One of these days, he decided, he would have to get Bryce into a truly _interesting_ hobby.


	23. Captain Smith

"Aye, lassie!" 

The boisterous voice scraped down Hillary's back like a set of very sharp fingernails. He leaned his arms on the railing and glowered at the water. He did not have to look up. He knew what was coming next. Lara would turn, a gentle smile on her face, and Captain Smith would kiss her hand, a smug grin on _his _self-satisfied face. Hillary thought it was courting disaster for a captain to have a name like that, especially considering his irritating personality, but the man had merely laughed when Hillary had brought it up at their first meeting. "Ar, alla the bad luck is outta that name by now! Squeezed dry, my boy!" Hillary would wager large sums that he was older than the Captain, but the man still called him "my boy."

Captain Smith, whose first name was an unpronounceable Finnish muddle of consonants, seemed to be laboring under the misapprehension that he was a pirate, rather than a dry goods trader and glorified ferry service. He dressed and talked flamboyantly, had a sharp, nearly trimmed beard, and seemed to take every opportunity to let his loose-fitting shirt fall open and show his muscular chest whenever women were around. Women like Lara, who looked on in appreciation when he did. If there were any constants in this world, Hillary mused, one of them was that Lara, all other considerations being equal, would always find the best-looking man available for any job. Unfortunately, another constant was that not one of them that Hillary had met had been worthy of licking the soles of her boots clean. Captain Smith was no exception.

Hillary bit his lip as Captain Smith whacked him heartily on the shoulder. "Feelin' a little seasick, my boy? Lubbers do; nothin' to be ashamed of!" Hillary counted to a sufficiently high number as the Captain swaggered off, then took a deep breath.

Lara leaned on the railing next to Hillary and chuckled. "Oh, let him have his fun." Hillary glanced over; she was grinning at him. "This passage would be far duller without him."

"I would be just fine with that," Hillary replied, looking out over the cold, deep blue waves. Grey sky met cobalt water without a sign of land.

"You would, wouldn't you?" Lara's tone was resigned. "I'm about ready to... jump out of my skin. Do something drastic. A ship belonging to Eric the Red! Never before explored! Can you imagine what would be _in_ there?"

Hillary put his back to the monotonous seascape, and watched the sailors scurry about, doing their jobs. "After all of this time in salt water? Corrosion and rot."

Lara crossed her arms and leaned her back on the railing. "Stop being such a cynic. I might get lucky. It's worth a look. And I'm going mad with the anticipation! Captain Smith, much as he annoys you, makes this passage a great deal more fun for me."

"I'm sure he does." Hillary bit his tongue a split-second too late.

Lara snorted, an odd noise to come out of her ladylike face. "Hillary. I'm going to start to think you're jealous." She stretched, her back popping slightly, then trotted across the deck to one of the masts. She leapt up with catlike grace and snagged a rope, scurrying up hand-over-hand and leaping into the crow's nest. The crew had quickly learned to let her do as she pleased, and not worry about her hurting herself or getting in their way.

Hillary walked back down to the small cabin they had been allotted. He should learn from the crew's example. Lara was more than capable of taking care of herself, and this trip would pass much more quickly if he read in the relatively quiet cabin, rather than standing out on the deck, watching Lara leap around, and being irritated by their pompous captain. He pulled up his knees as he lay on the cot that was too short for him, and started to read.

Twenty minutes later, he was back on the deck, anxiety tugging at his viscera as Lara leapt about or danced along the railing of the ship as she did what she called 'stretching her legs.'

------

Hillary could not help but sleep lightly on board ship; in addition to the odd sounds and swaying motion, he was not used to sleeping doubled-up; his legs would slowly straighten as he slept, leaving them dangling uncomfortably off of the edge of the cot. He therefore woke as soon as Lara laid a hand gently on his shoulder. He should have woken far sooner, however, as he could immediately hear the shuffling and lowered voices that must have woken Lara.

She put one finger over his lips, then slunk over to her bags, making less noise than a cat. She carefully pulled up her gun belt, holding the catch down with one finger to allow the belt to fasten noiselessly. She fastened the thigh straps over her pajama bottoms just as silently, then pulled out the guns and faced the door.

Hillary had pulled out his hunting knife; his gun was packed away, and he could not pull it out as noiselessly as Lara had readied hers. She nodded, slid back the door latch slowly, then stepped back and kicked the door open.

Hillary caught a glimpse of a face and a flash of white teeth as a muffled curse drifted into the room. Lara ghosted over the floorboards in her bare feet, leaping gracefully into the air as soon as she cleared the doorway. Hillary did not wait for the dull thud and cry of pain before rushing out after her.

Five sailors stood in the cramped corridor, three on one side and two on the other. A sixth lay on the ground, moaning. Lara rushed the three shell-shocked sailors on the one side, kicking one in the face as she pistol-whipped the second. The third collected himself and launched himself at Lara - just in time to get a knee in the solar plexus that dropped him like a vended candy bar.

Hillary noted this out of the corner of his eye as he launched himself at the other two. Surprise was on his side, and he was able to break the nose of one with the handle of his knife and slam the other's head into the wall with impunity. Broken-nose regained his composure with admirable speed, jumping onto Hillary's back and trying to strangle him with one elbow. Hillary bent and flipped the man over one shoulder, then kicked his stomach to ensure that he would stay down for a while.

Lara was already pelting her way down the corridor; Hillary caught the barest glimpse of black hair whipping around a corner at the far end of the narrow hallway. He sheathed his knife and ran after her, pounding up the stairway that lead to the main deck.

The cold night air hit his bare torso like a punch, leaving him breathless. He sucked in a lungful of air that was like a handful of cold razor blades as he turned, looking for Lara. Her dark clothes and dark hair blended with the shadows, making her an apparition in arm and glances of face as she ran along the deck, taking out the few sleepy sailors on duty with well-placed kicks and punches. She had sheathed her guns. Hillary tried to run after her, but his bare feet had no traction on the wet wooden planking, and he made lousy progress. He had barely covered half of the distance between them when something heavy fell onto his back, taking him to the decking with a loud roar and a dose of whiskey-laced breath over his face.

The same spray that made the planking slippery fortunately also made Hillary slippery; he slithered around to come nose-to-nose with a bearded sailor. He jabbed at the man's eyes, kicking him off when he jerked back. Hillary scrambled to his feet as the man lunged at him again, pushing him towards the ship's railing. Hillary swept the sailor's legs, and he fell to the deck with a heavy thud. Another bulky sailor who had been hovering behind charged as the first man fell, and Hillary could not keep his footing; he slid, the railing hit him in the small of the back, and he flipped over it, aided by the sailor. Hillary grasped at the railing as he went over; his right hand slipped off of the wet rail, and his left slipped off of the wet wooden ship's side, but his fall was slowed enough for him to grab a rope that hung down the side of the ship.

Ice-cold salt water lashed at him, and his hand started to go numb. He wrapped the rope around his forearm, then swung over to a rope net that hung on the side of the ship. He started to climb; twice, his numb hands slipped off of the netting, and he had to swing back to it via the rope wrapped around his arm. On the third attempt, his hands so numb that he had to watch his fingers to know when to open them and when to close them, he scrambled onto the deck, breathing a grateful sigh. His legs were as numb as his arms; his limbs were four blocks of wood.

Lara stood a few paces to the side, surrounded by a group of about seven sailors. They stood back warily, looking at the two guns Lara held and her alert stance. The men glanced at each other and at her, as she gazed levelly at them; the scene had the static look of a standoff. A few of the men glanced over at Hillary, but appeared to correctly dismiss him as not enough of a threat to risk being shot.

Hillary rose jerkily to his knees, and tried to shake the rope off of his arm. It would not come off, and he looked more closely. The rough hemp had sawed through his skin and started in on the muscle, and Hillary had to peel it off with care. If one of the sailors rushed him now, he thought irately, he would be finished.

But the standoff was broken by the appearance of the captain whose popularity, as far as Hillary was concerned, had hit subterranean levels. He swaggered into the light of the lamps that illuminated the circle of sailors. His beard and his hair was as neat as they had been to greet Lara when coming aboard.

"We can't keep a good lass down, can we?" he boomed with a grin. "Lads... stand down a bit, will yeh? You're making the lady nervous." The sailors only partially complied, glancing at the captain with suspicion.

"Not this one, captain," Lara said, coolly. "We're not as easily gotten rid of as your usual rich guests who want a little adventure, are we?"

Captain Smith shook his head. "Oh, you misjudge me, m'dear! I didn't jest toss away my passengers!" He threw his head back and laughed heartily. "Someone surely woulda noticed, don't you think? No, I just ripped 'em off. But you slept too lightly, and I'm afraid me men took it into their heads to dispose of you, when caught in the act." He shook his head and muttered to Lara, still loudly enough for Hillary to hear, "Good workers, but they can be stupid sometimes."

"I trust you will send your men back to their comfortable beds?" Lara asked, her guns steady.

"You lugs! Back to yer beds or yer stations!" Captain Smith barked, his voice commanding. With the air of men used to being ordered around, the men dispersed with alacrity.

Lara slid her guns gracefully back into their holsters. "You have given us lovely quarters, Captain, but I think we will stay awake until landfall. Qaqortoq is the closest port, isn't it? That will be just fine." Her voice was polite, but icy.

The captain did not miss the change. He sighed, then gave a half-bow. "We'll do so, and in return, I can trust yer discretion in this matter?"

"Just drop us off and go your way, and we can pretend we never met," Lara replied, gazing steadily at the captain.

"Oh, I would _never _wish ta pretend I had never met you, gracious lady," the captain said, his voice ingenuous. He bowed again, then stomped off after his sailors.

Hillary had managed to regain his feet, and was testing them gingerly. He kept the other hand wrapped very firmly around his injured forearm, which was starting to regain feeling and was not enjoying it. Lara put one arm around his waist and helped him towards the stairway.

"It's a long way from Qaqortoq to the site," Hillary mumbled, stumbling over the name. "How will we get there?"

"You know I always manage to figure something out," she said with a wink. "I think we have outlived our welcome on this ship in any case, however."

"I told you not to trust that captain," Hillary said as they started down the narrow stairway.

"Yes," Lara said, in a long-suffering voice, "you're _very_ smart."

------

Bryce traced the winding silver scar on Hillary's forearm. "Yer lyin'."

"I _what_?" Hillary asked, irate. "Of course I'm not! How else do you think I would have gotten that?"

"Kitchen accident," Bryce said, with certainty.

Hillary snorted. "Fine. Go ask Lara."

Bryce shook his head. "Nah, I wouldn't want to wake her up. It's late, ya know. I trust you." He gave Hillary a wide-eyed, innocent look, and Hillary flopped back on the pillow and looked up at the ceiling.

"Right, then, now that you _believe _my story, I'll finish it. The idiot of a captain dropped us off at the port, and we..."

"Hil'ry..." Bryce muttered, leaning in and licking Hillary's ear.

"What?"

"I don't care," Bryce said, as he started to do something that made Hillary not care, either.


	24. Frozen

**A/N: In the movies and the novelizations of them, it seems that Hillary is the only domestic servant at the manor (we do see a stable boy in TRII). That would leave him with a feckload to do.**

"Cold enough for you, dearie?" the gentle-faced old lady at the till would ask, whenever Hillary made the trip into town for supplies. She had been working at the store for as long as Hillary could remember, and had always been terribly kind, and so Hillary made the effort to bite back the response he wanted to make - "It's far too cold for any halfway sane human being, so would you please just shut _up_ about it, you batty old woman?"

The effort increased as February marched inexorably on. It was an unusually cold winter. Biting winds whistled around the old stonework of Croft Manor. It was a proud old house, but one that had been built more with pride in mind than insulation. It would be madness to try to heat the place in the winter, and therefore the inside of the house was only warm in relation to the outside. Lara spent more time than usual in her study, so Hillary would wake long before the sun rose to build a fire in it, ensuring the study would be bright and warm when Lara finished her morning exercises and settled down to work.

The normal domestic workload, not a minor one to begin with, seemed doubled, and Hillary had just enough time to check on supplies and make a list of what was needed before bringing Lara her morning tea. Then a check of the groundskeepers and stable boys who lived in the area, making sure they were well and were well-supplied. Afterwards, a check of the horses, making sure the stable boys were doing their jobs, making sure that the horses had their exercise, feed, water, and clean bedding. The winter stables were warm and full of the heady smell of livestock, and Hillary was often tempted to stay there - or even drag Bryce along with him to one of the inspections, hauling him up to the hayloft afterwards. But no; youthful experience had taught him that sex in a hayloft was more romantic in theory than in practice. The dust was particularly good at eliciting sneezes, and blades of hay would stick in all kinds of uncomfortable places.

Besides, there was no time. There was Lady Croft's lunch to be made and served, rooms to be cleaned in their rotation, and supplies to be bought if needed. Laundry to be done, supper to be made, Lara to be prodded to leave the rest of her work for another day (they were typically ignored), and, before bed, taps to be checked, to ensure that just enough water was dripping through to ensure the pipes would not freeze, and containers set to collect the drips for later use. Then, finally, back to his room.

Bryce's trailer was much warmer than the manor; Hillary did not know how the metal tablet could hold in heat so well. It must be something Bryce had done to it in the past; he had lived out of it for years, after all. It was tempting to stomp across the frozen grounds and enjoy a little warmth, of more than one kind, instead of stripping as quickly as possible in a room cold enough to make his breath come out in white plumes, diving into bed and shivering a pocket of warmth under the blankets before falling asleep. But Hillary knew that, as things were, he would be good for little more than an embrace and a few tired kisses, and did not feel like frustrating either of them. And so he fell asleep to the whistle of wind through cracks in other parts of the old stone manor, before waking early to start the process all over again.

------

Bryce decided, for the umpteenth time that day, that he hated February. With a passion. The entire month could just go fucking hang.

January had been bearable, with the memories of December still fresh. Heady seasonal revelry; even for an atheist, it was great fun, with Lara putting aside her work for a while and throwing some lovely parties at the manor. The parties had a staggering variety of people with very interesting tales - and interesting clothes, and interesting bodies. Bryce would mingle, taking his fill of the variety, telling horribly exaggerated stories to anyone who would listen. There would, of course, be even more satisfying moments as the party wound down; drunken, eggnog-flavored kisses, followed by drunken, eggnog-flavored sex, and a warm body next to his. Well, not just any warm body, of course. The one he found himself next to less and less as January gave way to February and the weather grew bitter, and if that wasn't reason enough to hate a month, he'd like to know what was.

He could just head over to the manor in the evenings, if he felt like it - but it was bloody _cold_ over there, and he had enough frustration as it was without adding to it a night spent in a warm pocket of air, one that left his nose exposed to be cold outside, being sleepily nuzzled by someone who wouldn't even get as far as an apology before falling into gentle, quiet snores. So Bryce remained where he was. He would rarely even bother to go to the manor for meals, spending an entertaining day or so living on cigarettes and whiskey before finding a well-wrapped bundle of food resting on his trailer's doorstep, and would it be too much trouble for the deliverer of the bundle to step inside for a moment? Bryce would not have to unwrap the butler _too_ much from his stiffly formal clothing in order to get his mouth on the man's cock, after all. But yes, apparently it _was_ too much trouble, and so Bryce sat in his trailer in the evenings, watching the light from one window in the manor flash on briefly, then shut off again for the night.

Bryce would stay up until the early hours of the morning, inventing more and more inventive ways to curse February. He'd fall back into his bed, thinking about just staying there; cocooning himself in a metal pod and waiting for spring.

Fuck February.


	25. Tattoo

Bryce did not ask before borrowing Lara's Jeep. She wouldn't mind, as long as he brought it back intact. If she did mind, of course, it would be silly of him to ask, wouldn't it? Satisfied with his reasoning, he nicked the keys and headed out of the manor grounds. 

The Jeep took him over snowy back streets, onto the main roads, and into London with very little drama. Bryce hunted down a sufficiently seedy area and made parallel parking an exercise in tessellation, emerging at long last to start pavement-pounding.

He returned after walking a block to pick up the printout he had left in the glove compartment.

Properly equipped at last, he lit a cigarette with his back to the mild, but bitterly cold, wind, turned up his collar, and started to make his way through the tattoo joints he was able to sniff out, poking his nose in to see if any would work for him. He was not terribly concerned with the quality of art in the portfolios, the cleanliness of the shop, or the standards of hygiene practiced by the needle-wielder. No, he had his printout, so what did he care about artistry? And it would be mighty rich of a bloke who smoked as much as he did to nit-pick about latex gloves and autoclaves. No, he was simply hunting down the most garrulous artist he could find.

He knew he had struck gold when the bored-looking man in one shop, a man with no hair on his head but a beard that would give Rapunzel pause, bellowed a greeting as soon as he walked in and immediately told a pointless yet bawdy tale of his time in some kind of military service or another. Bryce handed over the printout and told the man to go at it.

The end result was always very pleasing to Bryce, but he hated the process. The buzz of the needles sent chills down his spine that rivaled those created by a dentist's drill, and the burn made him want to jerk out of the chair and dance around the room, slapping the patch of skin in question. In order to sit still through the whole bloody process (in every sense), he wanted a tattooer with good stories - hell, even mediocre ones would do - and the desire to tell them.

"Oi, you've got a few already!" the man (his name was Butch, he barked at some point) bellowed as Bryce pulled off his shirt. He poked and prodded his way around them before seating Bryce and pulling out his gear. "None with names, though," he continued, as Bryce shifted and tried not to look at the man's setup. "Good choice, that. I don't do names no more. Too many buggers come back wantin' the name of their fiancée or girlfriend or boyfriend or bleedin' dachshund covered up. It makes some money, but I hate to think of the hard work I put in gettin' covered up, you know?"

"Whot if they're married, like? Wedding anniversary tattoo, and all?" Bryce asked, as Butch swabbed his forearm down with alcohol.

Butch gave a startlingly high-pitched laugh. "I seen all of those wantin' to get covered up!" He hung the printout on the wall with clear tape and squinted at it. "Thirty years married, oops, can you cover this up with a tiger or summit?" He chuckled again as he started up the gun, and Bryce clenched his teeth at the buzz.

"Whot's the strangest one you've had to do?" Bryce asked, raising his voice.

Butch's booming voice drowned out the buzz satisfyingly as he started to ink in the outline. "Oh, I dunno. I seen all kinds a' strange things. Guys who are all badarse wantin' to get their testicles tattooed..." Bryce cringed. "Women wantin' to get their naughties done. I tell you what, those bits look a lot less enticin' when you've had to stare at 'em - and smell 'em - for hours on end." He winked at Bryce.

"Not me thing," Bryce replied, surveying the work as Butch rolled back in his chair to get a fresh dose of ink. Not bad.

Butch grinned, a broad gash of yellowish-white in his pile of curly black beard. "Bat for the other team, eh? Can't say I blame yeh!" He ducked in for another go. "Bet it makes life a lot less complicated, don't it? Like another species, birds are."

"You said it," Bryce agreed. "Not that some blokes aren't."

Butch wiped off ink and blood, then went in for the detail work. "Yeah, like them fancy-arse blokes who wear suits all day and get on twenty-grand Harleys to go ta the coffee stand on weekends. They want them little tattoos where nobody but their mistresses and maybe their wives will see 'em. Why bother? Bet they're the same kind who wear women's underwear." He snorted. "Give 'em a tattoo that ain't a inch square, and they're leapin' all over the place. Buncha wet ponces."

"Hardly worth your time," Bryce muttered, leaning back and pointedly not looking at the vibrating needles as they jabbed into flesh.

"Nah, it's great." Butch snorted again, wiped away another smear of ink and blood, and dove in again. "I got a minimum, I do. I like them little ones. A day of those pays for a weekend in the country."

"Yeah, and the middle-age broads wantin' Betty Boop on their bums..." Bryce muttered to the ceiling. The buzzing stopped, and Bryce looked back down. Butch was glaring at him.

"I got Betty Boop on me thigh," he growled.

"Yeah, and you ain't a broad, and it's not on yer bum," Bryce replied, winking. Mollified, Butch went back to the tattoo.

"How about yer bi... bloke?" Butch asked. "Into these? I give a break on doubles."

"Nah, he don't like 'em,"

"Ah, well." Butch sounded disappointed. "How will he feel about this one, then?"

"His own problem," Bryce replied, quite confident that his words would never make their way back to Hillary. "He don't like 'em, he can find someone else."

Butch snickered. "Well, yer done," he said, bringing back that yellow-gash grin. Bryce looked back down, surprised, but as Butch cleaned the area with a fresh towel soaked with alcohol, Bryce saw that it was, indeed.

"You're fast, mate," he said in admiration.

"Ah, that's what the birds say," Butch replied, giving Bryce another dose of that odd high-pitched giggle. He dipped a tongue depressor in a jar of Vaseline and smeared it on the tattoo. "Now, keep this on fer two hours. Wash it and put some lotion or somethin' on it. It'll peel for a couplea days, and don't scratch it. You should know all that by now, righ'?" He looked pointedly at a dagger on Bryce's shoulder, a blurry edge betraying where he had scratched at it.

"Yeah, yeah." Bryce paid Butch, tipped generously, and, when pushed, promised to recommend his friends to the man. He stifled a chortle at the thought of Lara sweeping grandly into the shop to get a rose on her bum. What a bunch he had gotten as friends lately, hadn't he?

One of that bunch was waiting in the garage with his arms crossed when Bruce pulled in. Bryce leapt out of the Jeep with a grin and tossed the keys at Hillary, who unfolded one arm to catch them without his glower slipping. "I've been looking for you for an hour," he ground out.

"Whot, you my nanny now?" Bryce asked. He did not feel in the least bit upset. His outing had rejuvenated him, after weeks - god, had it been weeks? - living almost exclusively in his trailer. He spread his legs slightly to stand in a mocking echo of Hillary's own stance.

"No, but I am responsible for Lara's vehicles, so when you steal them..."

"Oi!" Bryce interrupted. "I borrowed that! You knew I was comin' back."

"I would if you told me you were... 'borrowing' it," Hillary replied, walking over to the rack on the wall to hang the Jeep's keys in their place. I'm surprised he didn't clean them first, Bryce thought to himself, then had to stifle a giggle as Hillary pulled them down, rubbed off some speck of something-or-other, and hung them back up.

"I couldn't find you," Bryce replied. While it was true that he didn't find Hillary, he had known where the butler would be at the time, and chose not to look in Lara's study. He had been annoyed at the man's prioritization, after all, and had been in no mood to talk about it. But he decided to make the best of his oddly elated mood, and grabbed Hillary around the waist. "I found you now, though. C'mon."

Hillary pulled the arm away. "I have _things_ to do..."

"Yeah, and I'm one of them," Bryce interrupted, grabbing him again, pressing a kiss to the frowning mouth, and yanking. _Sometimes_, he thought as Hillary yielded and let himself be dragged, pretending a smile wasn't tugging his mouth in the other direction, _being a stubborn bastard is a useful thing_.


	26. Africa

A/N: A continuation of the last chapter. This idea has been nagging at me. In Tomb Raider II, Hillary and Bryce are taken from Bryce's trailer in the middle of the night, and Hillary is dressed to the nines; they land in Africa, and he is decidedly roughed-up.

The "gentleman" Hillary is remembering is Sean.

------

Hillary had to admit, as he toed out of his shoes and pulled off his tie, that perhaps it _had_ been a bit too long since he and Bryce had done this. Bryce certainly seemed to think so; he locked the door to the trailer, then jumped on his cot and watched impatiently as Hillary took off his jacket and vest, hanging them gingerly on the chair that stood next to the sink.

"Hurry up," Bryce said, lying on his back and staring at the ceiling, as Hillary removed his trousers and hung them on the back of the chair.

Hillary shook his head as he took off his socks. "_You_ are the one whose state of dress is going to hold up this procedure..."

"Procedure!" Bryce snorted. He sat up, kicked off his shoes, and his T-shirt, jeans, and underpants went flying with astonishing speed, landing carelessly on the chest-of-drawers in the corner or on the ground. Hillary raised his eyebrows as he pulled off his own T-shirt and boxers. "Well," Bryce continued, "are ya ready for this _procedure_ yet, doc?"

"Stop being a smartarse," Hillary replied, and those were the last words spoken for about half an hour. Communication became all moans and breathless laughs and a gasp or two, and Hillary admitted ruefully to himself that it _had_ been too long, as he came with face-reddening rapidity. But he did his best to make up for that by pushing Bryce onto his back, licking him quite thoroughly, and pressing his hands to the small of the man's back firmly in just _those_ spots that turned Bryce's giggles into strangled moans as he came.

Afterwards - well, it was warm in the trailer, and Bryce felt good in his arms, and with the post-coital lassitude over him, Hillary tried to slip into a contented doze. But the back of his mind kept prodding him with daily tasks undone, things that would only become more critical the more he ignored them in this tranquil state, and he shifted restlessly. Bryce stirred in response, and reached up languidly to stroke Hillary's cheek. He snorted as his hand grazed stubble. "Oi, _I'm_ the only one who walks around like that!"

"I shaved this morning," Hillary muttered, looking up at the ceiling of the trailer. That morning felt like a week ago.

"Four this mornin'?" Bryce asked, rearranging himself to lie more comfortably. Not far off, Hillary thought, ruefully. "I don't think I seen you this scruffy since Africa," Bryce finished, sighing.

If anything could have made Hillary more at ease, if anything could have lulled him to sleep, Africa was not it. He sighed and rolled to the edge of the cot, pushing Bryce off gently. Bryce blinked up at him, sleepily, as Hillary stood and started to dress again. "Eh," Bryce muttered, "stay a bit."

"I have things to do," Hillary replied, pausing in his re-dressing to fish the blanket off of the floor and drape it over Bryce. "Sleep."

Bryce's face was creased by a small frown, but it smoothed out as he dozed off, snoring gently. Hillary tucked his tie into his vest, checked himself in the dingy mirror, and walked outside, taking a sharp breath of ice-cold air. He hurried to the manor, and started in on the evening's tasks. Africa. Many thanks to Bryce for bringing _that_ up, he groused internally. Still - Bryce hadn't been there for all of it, had he? Had he just not _noticed_ the signs?

It had all started in that blasted trailer, Hillary reflected, his mind wandering as he started on the first item of the evening's routine, cleaning the dishes from that day. Reiss's hirelings had been waiting; a gun was in Hillary's face the moment he stepped inside. Bryce had a guard over him, as well, and was wearing a rueful grimace instead of a welcoming smile. The hirelings had not spoken to them, merely handcuffed them and watched them, stonily, until Reiss walked in with that... man. His head of security, the one with the Scottish accent who deferred only to Reiss, and to him with near-reverence. Reiss had told Bryce what to say and do, and Hillary knew that Bryce would have tipped Lara off more obviously than he had done if that _gentleman_ had not had a gun to Hillary's head and an evil grin on his face.

At least, Hillary liked to believe that. Bryce just did not love Lara as much as Hillary did.

But it was done, and they were shoved into a waiting Eurocopter, one of three that had made a mess of the manor's topiary. A guard, a pilot, and that _gentleman_ all boarded with him and Bryce, shoving them into the back seats. Once they were airborne - that _gentleman_ shouting belligerent instructions to the sullenly silent hirelings and talking to Reiss on a two-way the whole time - and the flight had evened out somewhat, the _gentleman_ yelled a question to one of the hirelings. "Did you find anything when you frisked them?"

"I didn't," she replied - the only words Hillary had heard anyone but Reiss or that _gentleman_ speak. Said _gentleman_ cuffed her sharply over the head.

"_Idiot_!" he yelled. He tore off his safety belt and grabbed the handcuffed Bryce, patting him down quickly and efficiently. Hillary swore quietly to himself. He had taken the opportunity of the flight's distracting motions to start to work the knife out of his trousers. It was not easy to get under a buttoned jacket surreptitiously when handcuffed, and he only had it half-out, working from over the top of his jacket.

That _gentleman_ discovered a packet of cigarettes and a lighter in Bryce's pockets, as well as a handful of loose change. He snarled and tossed them to the female hireling, then moved to Hillary. Given the choice between attacking half-arsed and trying to conceal the knife, Hillary chose the former, considering, wryly, that if he failed, at least Reiss would be short one hostage. As the _gentleman_ clambered over to his seat, Hillary twisted and grabbed the knife awkwardly as it fell out from between his trousers and jacket. It was not a move Hillary had high hopes for, and Reiss had not hired that _gentleman_ for his clerical skills, after all. He noted the movement and fell over Hillary, grabbing for his bound wrists, jamming his thumbs into the nerve clusters at the base of Hillary's wrists. Hillary dropped the knife before he even had a good grasp of it. He tried to kick, but the _gentleman_ pulled Hillary up as he rose, then pushed back, sending Hillary crashing through the door to the cargo compartment, to lie panting on the floor.

"I've got this one. Keep your eyes on the other one, you feckups!" the _gentleman_ yelled, then barged into the cargo hold, closing the door behind him. Almost no light came through, and Hillary blinked, blind, as he tried to stumble to his feet. That _gentleman_ grabbed him just as blindly by the shoulder and side, then rearranged his grip, grabbing Hillary by the hair and ramming his head against the wall hard enough to make Hillary see stars. Standing upright took up all of Hillary's consciousness, and he swayed as the _gentleman_ began to frisk him. He pulled out a knife of his own and used it to cut Hillary's jacket off, running the shreds through his hands before wadding them and tossing them in the corner. He put the knife away and leaned in, running his hands up and down Hillary's legs, then up his sides, reaching behind Hillary to feel his shirt-sleeves and back.

This brought him close, and he said in Hillary's ear, as he felt and re-felt and _re_-felt, "I've heard about you. You two. I hear what a goddam pair of fags you are." His hands kept running, running, and he pressed closer as Hillary tried to shake him off, bringing one hand to the front to yank Hillary's vest open and undo his shirt. "You're fuckin' disgusting," he hissed, running his hands down Hillary's sides and front, his lips close to Hillary's mouth, so that as the chopper swayed and bucked in the wind, they touched, and Hillary recoiled. The _gentleman_ pressed closer yet, crushing Hillary slightly between himself and the wall of the cargo compartment, grabbing Hillary's buttocks hard. "What? You're disgusted, now? That's goddam rich, you ponce," he hissed, every word brushing his lips against Hillary's.

Someone banged on the door at that point. "Y'all right in there?" a male voice asked.

That _gentleman_ seemed to come back to himself, pushing Hillary back against the wall. Hillary tripped over something lying in the darkness, and with his hands cuffed, could not brace himself as he caromed off of the wall and landed on his front with a breath-losing grunt. The _gentleman_ made noises that sounded like suit-straightening. "I'm fine. This one was armed, you dumb saps," he yelled. He opened the cargo door, and Hillary blinked against the light. "Get this one," the _gentleman_ ordered, and the female hireling came to her feet with a sigh. The _gentleman_ walked into the cabinet as the woman came back and dragged Hillary into the passenger compartment once more, dropping him onto one of the seats and strapping him in.

Bryce must not have noticed, Hillary mused as he dried one last demitasse cup and put it in the china cabinet. He must not have noticed how disheveled Hillary was, or just chosen not to note the import, because not a word was said as they flew on, straight to the Kilimanjaro. Once that blackguard Sheridan rescued them - and oh, how that circumstance irked Hillary - Bryce had become his normal laconically optimistic self, and acted as if the kidnapping and the flight had never ocurred.

Hillary sighed and wiped the immaculately clean cabinet door again. Damn the man.


	27. Ill

Bryce stared at the ceiling and sighed, deeply. The intake of breath irritated his sore throat, and he coughed a harsh, hacking cough. He closed his eyes, knowing what would come next. 

Footsteps clicked into the room with near-military precision. "Are you all right?" Hillary's voice asked, briskly.

"Yeah," Bryce replied, not opening his eyes.

"You haven't been sneaking cigarettes, have you?" A too-warm, long-fingered hand descended onto Bryce's forehead, and he jerked his head away, opening his eyes to stare at Hillary with annoyance.

"_You_ took me fags, and you've been watchin' me like a goddam hawk to make sure I don't get up. Where would I have got 'em?" Bryce felt annoyed and petulant, and he was determined that Hillary should know that - on the off chance that the man had managed to forget it in the ten minutes since he had last been in the room.

Hillary looked slightly startled as he pulled his hand back. "I'm just trying to make sure you're all right. Cigarettes will _not_ help you shake this."

"The shakes I'm gettin' from not havin' 'em sure as hell in't helpin'!" Bryce snarled back.

Hillary stepped back and tugged his jacket straight. "Well. Just let me know if you need anything to be comfortable."

Bryce grinned. "I can think of somethin'..." He snaked his hand from underneath the stifling blanket. Hillary grabbed him by the wrist and tucked the arm back in.

"You need your rest," he replied, his voice chiding. "I'll bring you some tea when I take Lady Croft hers." He turned on his toe and strode out of the room.

Bryce stared glumly at the ceiling, just as he had before. Coming down with a touch of flu in the late winter was nothing new. He had done it in years past, and had done just as his mum had - drank gin and smoked until he felt better. But Hillary had his own ideas of what to do when sick, and he wasn't content to just keep them to himself. No, he insisted on forcing them on Bryce. He had dragged the man bodily out of his trailer and tucked him into his own bed. Any ideas Bryce might have entertained that this was to allow him easier access - which Bryce _would_ have heartily approved of - were tossed out on the first night, when Hillary slept in a chair near the door, stuffing Bryce back into bed when he tried to sneak out. Bryce was beginning to wonder if the 'intent' of the treatment was to make him so damn sick of being sick that he would heal faster just to get out of there. It didn't seem to be working. He was as tired of the situation as a human could be, but his temperature stubbornly refused to drop, and his voice would not lose the additional harshness the 'flu had given it.

Bryce punched the pillow a few times and flopped back onto it. Being in Hillary's bed did not help things. The 'flu had not brought congestion with it, so Bryce could clearly smell _Hillary_ over the bedclothes and in the air of the room. It was pervasive - a slightly musky smell of clean human, one that was readily identifiable as Hillary, with just the faintest touch of toothpaste and a whiff of cologne over the top. The man was refusing to touch Bryce as anything other than a nursemaid, and Bryce was bloody well sick of it. Then, to layer insult on top of injury, no cigarettes! His body was aching for nicotine, making him sweat, screaming at him that it _needed_ it, and there was not a cigarette to be had. They were all in his trailer. Bryce entertained the idea of knotting the sheets together and climbing out of the window, but he was no good at knots. He'd fall and break a leg, and Hillary would tie him to the damn bed until it healed.

The idea of Hillary tying him to the bed nudged at him in ways he did not intend, and he flopped his head to the side and groaned.

"Are you all right?" Hillary asked, walking in with a tea service on a tray.

"Take yer tea service and jam it up Lara's rectum sideways," Bryce moaned.

Hillary shook his head as he set the tray on the nightstand. "Those cigarettes are no good for you. Look at what they've done to you..."

"_You've_ done this to me," Bryce muttered. But his mouth was arid, and he took the tea Hillary poured for him and slurped it down, noisily, barely tasting it.

"Quitting abruptly is always difficult, but you've made it this far; if you just keep..." Bryce smiled and nodded, letting Hillary ramble. He did not listen. He thought about the pleasures of the flesh he would be able to indulge in once he was well again. A good, satisfying cigarette, drawing warm, relaxing smoke into his lungs. A shot of whiskey - the gentle, smooth fire of it, perhaps mixed with a cup of espresso. Yes, the bitter, buttery power of the coffee would complement the whiskey _perfectly_. And after that, Hillary - even if he had to pretend his trailer needed a jolly good straightening up in order to lure the man into it. Then out of his clothes and onto Bryce's cot. Or even on the chair in front of Bryce's computer desk. Or perhaps in the manor, on the marble countertop - or on that immaculate kitchen floor. Yes, _that_ had possibilities, and Bryce had no problem smiling and nodding about whatever get-healthy drivel Hillary was spouting. The butler felt Bryce's forehead again with his too-warm hand and cleared the tea service, walking out to leave Bryce stewing in his Hillary-scented bedclothes.

_Just you wait 'til I'm well_ Bryce purred, internally, and almost felt sorry for the man.


	28. Thankless

Bryce frowned at the fragments in his hand, trying not to spill the fine gravel that some of the more delicate components had been reduced to as he picked through them. "I _designed _ this, Lara. I know fer a fact that it was waterproof, windproof, shockproof, abrasion-proof..."

"Yes, but I think the acid weakened the outer shell, rendering it susceptible to impact damage. Then the water got in, and it was all over." Lara shook her head as she fished in her backpack.

"Acid?" Bryce asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"Yes. The thing that was guarding the underground chamber - some kind of slug, I'd guess, or maybe they had a common ancestor once - I'll have to speak with Lindsay about it. In any case, it had highly acidic saliva. I would guess that it digests whatever it feeds on outside of its body, then slurps it up. It did not have any teeth that I could see." Lara pulled a flat piece of stone out of her backpack, setting it on the desk. She dipped into the bag again to pull out a small metal cube. "It did not like fire at all. That lighter you made is magnificent!"

"Of course it is!" Bryce snapped, feeling wounded. "I made it, after all. Steady hot smokeless flame in any weather, any gale." He dumped the pile of ex-recorder on the desk and took the cube, fiddling with it. "The recorder would've survived, too, if you would've _told_ me that it was goin' to be bathed in acid before it was bashed around and drowned..." He pulled out a cigarette.

Lara yanked the lighter away. "No smoking in the manor," she chided, putting it on the desk. She picked up the chunk of stone again, looking at it with interest. "But just look at what I retrieved!" She brushed her hand across it gently, reverently. A fine spray of dirt fell to the ground; her eyes sparkled with delight as she smiled down at it. "I'll have to get it translated, but I think it has something to do with Vesuvius. It appears to be..."

Bryce did not give a good roll in the hay about a two-thousand-year-old stone shopping list. "I know there's no smokin', I'm just suckin' on it." He proceeded to do so, picking up some of the larger fragments of the ex-shell of the recorder and looking at them carefully. He could now see where the acid had eaten away at the careful Lara-proofed seams he had put together. "You don't _appreciate_ the work I do fer yeh, Lara! This took me _months_ of plannin' and fabricatin' to get just right. I even worked on it when I was sick..."

She arched one perfect eyebrow. "Well, if I had known I was going to run into an acid-dribbling subterranean slug, I would have let you know that I needed my equipment to be acid-proof. As it was, I had adjust to changing circumstances." She shrugged. "My _guns_ survived the experience intact..." She indicated the monsters of weaponry that rode on her hips, gleaming dully in the gentle manor lighting.

Oh, yes, her _guns_. Hillary's responsibility, those. No wonder they held up better; whenever Hillary got out of bed long before Bryce woke - or did not come to bed at all - he must be spending the time dreaming up nutty scenarios that Lara _might_ possibly get into, and insulating her equipment against them. If Lara paid by the hour, Bryce thought sulkily, even her vast fortune wouldn't cover Hillary. Her demands never let up; even when she was gone, she would call back endlessly, wanting this or that or the other thing, wanting x translated or y investigated or for one of them to run over and help her with z. No, she didn't appreciate the two of them at all. He brooded on that, barley noticing her excited ramblings about that sodding hunk of stone in her hands, nodding at what should be appropriate points in the narrative.

"Your bath is ready, Lady Croft," Hillary said, walking into the room with what Bryce thought was excessive formality. Lady Croft was hardly the picture of aristocratic decorum in her filthy catsuit and bedraggled braid, after all.

She dropped the stone on Bryce's desk and spun with a gratified sigh, walking towards the large staircase. "Ah, do I _need_ a bath!" She pitched the backpack behind her without a backwards glance, expecting Hillary to catch it one-handed behind her, which he did. She unbuckled her guns from her waist and her muscular thighs, pitching them just as casually behind her for Hillary to catch with just as much care.

_Trained monkeys, we are_, Bryce thought with a snort, then poked at the recorder again, sucking on his unlit cigarette. Well, he had managed to make a Lara-proof phone at last, and damn him if he wasn't going to make a video/audio recorder that she couldn't destroy, no matter how hard she tried! He pulled up the design plans for the one that lay in a sad pile of half-melted fragments on his desk. State of the art and then some, it was. He couldn't help but admit to himself that he had done the best work he had ever done in her employ; her inarguable need for something better than had ever been made before motivated him like no promise of profit ever had. Still, he thought irritably, she didn't have to take him for _granted_ like that.

Bryce fumbled with one hand for the cup that should have been on the desk, his eyes on the design on the screen. His hand encountered nothing. "Oi, Hillary!" he yelled, irritated. "Where's me coffee?"


	29. Alex

Bryce loved bright, sunny spring days. Warm days, with twittering birds and soft green grass; beach days, tanning days, ice-cream days. Bryce loved them because people tended to go outside during days like that and leave him alone. 

He was being left quite pleasantly alone on one such pretty spring day. Well, alone except for the occasional presence of Hillary - but it was always a transient presence, as the butler strode through the front room on one errand or another. Bryce gently settled the red wire into place. No, Hillary rarely stood still; it was always work, work, work for Lady Croft's butler. _Can't be good for the heart_, Bryce thought, as he slid the brown wire under the red one. Cigarette break soon, he decided. Once he got those two in place.

A movement caught the corner of his eye, and he turned his head to face the security monitor. A red car was pulling up. Hillary would doubtless know the make, model, year, and history, maybe the sexual preference of the manufacturer, but Bryce did not give a good shit. "Hillary! Someone's at the door!" He bent back over his work.

The door opened, and the green wire that Bryce almost had in place jumped right back out as a too-familiar, very annoying American accent drifted into the room. "...thought I'd stop by, ya know?"

Bryce could certainly do without the endless stream of Lara's ex-lovers that seemed to drift into the manor every spring like allergenic pollen. They were always alpha males, insufferable, overly muscled, arrogant prats. It was Alex, this time. This bit of dirty-blond dander came slouching in, wearing a rumpled suit, looking around airily like he owned the place. Bryce turned firmly to his work.

Hillary strode in behind Alex. "I apologize, but Lady Croft is away."

"Yeah?" Out of the corner of his eye, Bryce saw Alex turn halfway towards Hillary. "Where'd she go?"

"I am not at liberty to say." Hillary was in Butler Mode, and his voice was smooth and polite.

Alex laughed. "How long have we known each other, man? You can tell me." His shoes clicked on the stone floor as he stepped to the middle of the room. "Anything to drink around here?"

"I'll see what we can get you." Hillary gently touched Alex on the shoulder, Bryce noted, as he walked towards the kitchen. "But as well as you know Lady Croft, you should also know that if she wants you to know where she is, she'll tell you, and if she did not tell you, she does not want you to know where she is."

Alex laughed again. "Too harsh!" he said, his voice twice as loud as it needed to be. Bryce wondered if the man had ever heard of an 'inside voice.' "I'm sure she just forgot."

"You're welcome to try to charm the answer out of her, but not out of me," Hillary said smoothly, walking into the kitchen.

Bryce looked up in time to see Alex following Hillary into the kitchen. A bit too quickly, Bryce decided, and a new reason for his annoyance with Alex popped into his mind. Yes, it was almost teenagerish, but still - handsome bugger, that Alex. Certainly more of the athletic type than Bryce, he thought - more of the type that Hillary would go for, yeah? He tried to put his mind back to the partially-completed pocket welder in front of him, but thoughts danced around in his head. _And just how long_ had _he and Hillary known each other?_ a little voice asked. Maybe Alex _would_ try to charm the answer out of Hillary.

Proper placement of the brown wire, Bryce told himself firmly. But that little voice in his head had other ideas. _Bet they're goin' at it_, the voice said. When Bryce did not respond, it sent up images. Images of Alex and Hillary walking into the kitchen, of Alex smiling that annoyingly lopsided smile that women seemed to find alluring, of Hillary flashing that rare smile that Bryce _did_ find alluring right back at him. Of hands slowly but surely going to hips, on either side. Of heads tilting, of lips meeting - just a touch at first, then tongues snaking out to prod at each other. Hillary's long, lean fingers tangling in sandy hair as their mouths opened wider. Yes, Hillary would probably enjoy a mouth that didn't taste like cigarettes; he'd probably be pretty damn happy to get his hands on a stomach that was muscled enough to wash clothes with. He'd probably moan, and Alex for damn sure would. Bryce knew what those hands and that tongue could do, and what they could do weren't things to be quiet about. No, they were things to encourage unbuttoning those excessively tailored trousers and slipping one's hand inside to grab a handful of that _good_ stuff, and if Alex so much as _touched_...

"Fine, fine - but she's going to be _very_ disappointed when she finds out that I wanted to see her and didn't know where she was!"

Bryce realized he was staring into thin air with his mouth half-open. He shut it quickly and grabbed for the nearest tool. Alex stepped out of the kitchen, a bottle of root beer in his hand, his other hand stuffed into his pocket.

"That's a chance I'll take," Hillary said, his voice as smooth as sweet-cream butter.

"I'm sure you will," Alex snorted, then took another pull from the bottle. He tipped it towards Hillary in thanks. "See ya." He swung around, pausing in his spin as he faced Bryce. "See ya later, Bryce!"

"Er - wha? Yeah..." Bryce did not get much stuttering out before Alex, to his relief, left.

Hillary followed Alex out to the entryway and closed the door behind the man. Bryce started to try to find out where he had been before that sodding tosser had walked in. He was interrupted by Hillary's return. "What?" asked the butler.

"Huh?" _Very suave_, the little voice said.

Hillary walked over and slid one leg up on the desk, looking down with an expression that could not decide if it was puzzled or amused. "Bryce, you were glaring daggers at him."

Bryce frowned at the device in front of him. "I don't like how he keeps comin' around here after Lara."

"He's not such a bad sort. And," mischief crept into Hillary's voice, "since when did you care about the company Lara keeps?"

"He's a twat." Bryce hunkered firmly back over his work as Hillary slid off of the desk; he picked up his forceps and put the green wire firmly into place. He almost jumped out of his skin when Hillary touched his back.

"Bryce, you've been working too hard, I think." Hillary sounded amused "Concern for Lara? What's next?"

"Yer one to talk," Bryce grumbled.

Hillary's hand withdrew, and Bryce freed one hand to pick up the soldering iron. As he touched it gently to the connection to warm it, Hillary asked, his voice soft and slightly confused, "Would you like to go out later?"

"Yeah, yeah, later." Bryce touched the solder to the join as he heard Hillary's footsteps fade as the man left the room. He felt a little irked at himself for not being more enthusiastic about that offer. Hell, for not throwing down his work and saying he wanted to go out _right away_. Hillary's busy schedule meant that he rarely proposed an outing before Bryce, and Bryce got a little tired of always being the one to propose going out or having sex. But Bryce was in no mood.

Damn Alex, he thought irately. The next time the man came around, he'd get a few flares up the tailpipe - and Bryce was not thinking about the car.

He could always apologize later.


	30. Serendipity

**A/N: And now for something completely different. Warning for het.**

------

A loud, metallic banging jerked Bryce unkindly out of his sleep. He got out of bed, annoyed, and promptly fell flat on his face. Not trusting himself to be any farther above the ground than that, he crawled to the door of the trailer on all fours, hiking himself up onto his knees once he arrived there. He swayed precariously for a moment, regained his balance, and was just reaching for the door when that banging sound recurred. He fell back, bracing himself with his left arm and pressing his right hand to his forehead. "Ugh, gah, Lara!" he groaned as the door swung open.

"Bryce! You were supposed to meet me in the manor at nine o'clock!" Lara said, briskly.

Bryce squinted as light flooded into the trailer. "So I'm a little late. Ain't no reason to come..." He groaned again, the rest of the sentence dissolving into incoherent muttering as the light hit a small pain switch in the back of his brain, exploding that organ in a rather unpleasant way.

"It's one in the afternoon, Bryce." Lara stood with her hands on her hips, her legs spread assertively, her expression casting a chill. "You were drinking again, weren't you."

"What was your first fuckin' clue?" Bryce grumbled, pressing the heel of his right hand to his forehead. He realized he was wearing nothing but a stained pair of boxer shorts that belonged to Hillary and were far too loose on him, but he never cared terribly much about his appearance around Lara.

"That's not good for you," Lara said, crisply. "You can't get thrashed every night simply because Hillary isn't here."

Bryce grunted. Any number of replies ran through his head, but actually speaking any of them seemed like too much effort. "It's not that he's gone - it's the fact that he's gone on one of _your_ damn errands, risking his neck for your convenience, and that pisses me off and frightens me equally" was one of the things that he did not say. "I have found that I don't sleep very well when I sleep alone, and that fact is a bit frightening to a man like me" was another phrase that flitted through his mind without making its way to his mouth. "He hasn't even called," though short, was not said. His lips and tongue told him that they were simply not up to "He will never leave you and I can never leave him even though it kills me to see him slaving away for you." Bryce merely grunted again, and managed to force out, "I'll take care of whatever the fuck it is you need tomorrow."

Lara tapped her lip as Bryce spoke, cocked an eyebrow, and stepped back. "Right," she said, nodded, and repeated, a little more gently and quietly, "Right." She closed the door, and the room was mercifully cool and dark again. "Get some water..." she called as her footsteps retreated.

------

After an afternoon of shuffling around the trailer playing video games, after a few swallows of water, and after an Advil, Bryce was feeling more like himself. He was not enjoying the sensation. His mind drifted idly to the cellular phone that had lain silently on the counter for the whole day, and then drifted a foot to the left - to the little freezer full of bottles of spirits that were potent enough to stay liquid at very cold temperatures indeed.

Bryce opened the freezer and pulled out a bottle of very good gin. He was surprised when liquid stopped flowing from the bottle after his glass was only three-quarters full. "Have to get some more," he told himself, pitching the bottle in the corner. He settled back to his game, sipping at the gin. Potent stuff.

The trailer door opened. Bryce's heart lept into his throat, but rapidly sank back somewhere near the region of his bowels as he saw a slim, cat-like figure reflected in the black border of his monitor. "I told ye I'd come by _tomorrow_," he grumbled. With his big toe, he deftly flicked the CD player over to his Nick Cave CD, which he knew Lara hated.

She slipped behind him almost noiselessly and put her hands on his shoulders. They were warm and dry. "You shouldn't be drinking," she said, quietly.

"Piss off," Bryce growled. He savagely shot a US Marine. I should, he told himself as the computer-generated man screamed and fell apart into a bloody mess, make a patch to turn them all into Laras. "You're not me mum."

"No," she said, quietly. Bryce suddenly noticed that she was rubbing his shoulders. She had been doing so since she had first touched him - so gently that he had not even noticed. "I care about you. I know you think I don't. But Hillary loves you, and I love Hillary. So I have to love you, as well."

"Quit with the shite, woman." Another Marine died very messily indeed. "You pull 'im away from me whenever you can." He was starting to talk sloppily, he noticed. He had not even finished his drink, though.

"It is... the way we have always worked," she said, quietly, still rubbing his shoulders. "I am not going to change who I am simply because you've arrived. I certainly would not presume to change who _he_ is simply because you've arrived. I enjoy danger. He enjoys it, as well - in a different way. It will always be a constant in his life."

Bryce shrugged, then slammed his controller down with an irate "Fuck!" as a Marine shot him in the back. He glared at the screen with a sigh, trying not to look at the reflection of the woman in the black bits.

"Come to bed," Lara said, quietly.

Bryce did turn to look at her, then, twisting in his chair and staring. She did not appear drunk or high. She did not appear to have sprouted a second head, which would have been less ludicrous to Bryce than what he had just heard. "You want me to _what_?"

"I don't know when he'll be back," she said, stepping back and crossing her arms. She looked, Bryce was startled to note, _nervous_. For the first time he had ever seen. "I want to do right by you."

Bryce snickered. "You're not my type." But he did not look away.

"I know," she said, quietly. She looked down at her folded arms, then unfolded them, letting them fall by her sides.

Bryce could never determine later what made him stand up and kiss her. Something about her vulnerability, which was something he had never seen before. Something about loneliness. Something about need. Something about a shared love. Something.

It was odd to kiss someone his own height. He instinctively wanted to tilt his head upwards. All of the logistics worked better when they fell onto his unmade and not-aired-out-recently bed; he held himself up on all fours and kissed her, hard. She kissed back at least as aggressively as Hillary, but her mouth was just constructed completely differently. He determined right then that trying to compare her to Hillary would be a very bad idea, and so he focused on the differences - pushing her shirt up and snaking his hand under her bra to play with her very un-male nipples, then unhooking her trousers and pushing them down. Being inside of her was... well, distinctly odd. It involved a certain amount of pleasure, of course, but the logistics all seemed off - especially when she reached down to take care of herself, and her nails kept bumping Bryce's cock. However, he did, eventually, come, and the release was unexpectedly intense. He most likely said Hillary's name a few times, and ended up on his back, drained and shaky, with Lara strangely soft and curvy next to him.

He slept like the dead.

Bryce was alone and naked when he woke up the next morning, but he had no hangover. He felt... he paused for a moment, trying to figure out exactly how he felt.

He felt rather good, actually.

He stood up, shuffled into the main room of his trailer, yawned, and stretched, making a cacophony of bone-popping sounds. He looked down at the cell phone that was still sitting on the counter. A text message alert blipped brightly on its face.


End file.
